


Somebody to Love.

by MollyMaryMarie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Smut, University AU, Wolfstar AU, a little fluff, definitely angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 19:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11259285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyMaryMarie/pseuds/MollyMaryMarie
Summary: Finally, Sirius stood and made his way toward the front of the room. Breathing was suddenly a lost skill – I wondered what he would say, if he would see me.“He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?” he began, his voice quivering as he spoke, but his head kept down. “He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.”For a moment, he paused, taking in a slow, shaking breath. All noise in the atmosphere had ceased – there was only Sirius Black, and nothing else.“I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder.” Finally, his eyes rose, and they found mine instantly. If there were tears in his eyes, I couldn’t see them through my own. Sirius continued, his voice cracking in misery. “And went with half my life about my ways.”The look on his face as he finished speaking told me everything. It was an expression of guilt and regret, desperate to fix what he had broken. So he had seen it, too.Tearing his gaze away from mine, he silently walked from the room.And I ran instantly after him.





	Somebody to Love.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone hates first person, I'm aware. It would be better in third, but I'm too lazy to change it now. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

_** On Fire: ** _

My knuckles were white on the handle of my one piece of luggage. It was an old chest that my father had outfitted with wheels so I wouldn’t have to carry it across the entire campus. I desperately wished my parents could’ve come with me, but I knew plane tickets were expensive, and they didn’t have the time to drive in, or take a bus, like I had.  

As I thumbed the half-eaten chocolate bar in my pocket – given to me by my mother to deal with the stress of sitting next to a dozen strangers on a run-down bus – I almost began to wish I hadn’t come, either. The idea of university was exciting, in itself – the courses, the exciting topics, the new books. That wasn’t the part I had a problem with. No, the problem was with everything else. In particular, the people.

I had never really gotten along with boys my age. They all wanted to chase girls and play pranks and skip their studying. While girls were fine, books were better. Pranks could be fun, but stories were much more entertaining. Studying for exams was occasionally a drag, but more often than not, it was enjoyable. A little like doing a puzzle. But these differences weren’t even my biggest problem with kids my own age. The biggest problem was their fixation on appearance and the incessant bullying that accompanied it.

When I was really young, I got into some sort of accident. My parents are very hush-hush about it, and, of course, I don’t remember much, but it left me with some fairly noticeable scars, particularly across my face. Right over the bridge of my nose. For everyone to see.

They’re really not all that bad, the scars. They happened so long ago that they’ve faded into a soft pink. They’re not raised, or jagged, or blisteringly red. But that didn’t matter.

Phantom of the Opera jokes were made a lot during secondary school. I always gave them credit for being literary with their insults. The less creative ones called me Frankenstein, which is so literarily inaccurate, on so many levels, I was more upset over their lack of knowledge than I was about it being used to offend me.

I didn’t imagine university being much better. I’d heard horror stories about fraternities and hazing and the like. Surely if I kept to myself, and kept to my studies, nobody would look twice at me. If I kept my head buried in a book, nobody would notice my scars.

As I drew nearer to my assigned dormitory room, I began to feel a familiar pit at the bottom of my stomach. If only I had some excuse to have my own room. I was dreading sharing a living space with another individual, particularly a male. Girls were generally more sensitive on the topic of my scars. Boys didn’t care. They used anything to gain superiority.

When I turned the door knob and opened the door as quietly as possible, hoping that my roommate hadn’t arrived, I knew I was going to be disappointed as soon as I heard the music coming from within. As the door opened further, I recognized it as a Queen song – I saw the vinyl spinning on the hi-fi against the back wall.

 On the bed along the opposite wall lay my roommate. I let my eyes travel over him to gain information about what kind of a person he might be. His long, black hair was strewn carelessly over where his hands were folded behind his head, his dark hair a stark contrast against the white pillow that was propping him up. He wore a proper white button-down collared shirt but the collar was splayed open around his neck, the loosened tie draped across his chest. Between his relaxed lips, a lit cigarette dangled haphazardly, a long train of ash hanging precariously from the end. A black leather jacket was draped over the foot of the bed, and his feet, covered in thick, black boots, were crossed at the ankle.

Based on his outward appearance, he looked like a complete troublemaker, and I really prayed that wasn’t the case. I wanted a quiet, uneventful first semester with good grades. His leather jacket and biker boots were bad enough on their own, but he was also smoking a fag in _my_ room. Surely he wouldn’t be so inconsiderate as to continue that kind of behavior once I moved in. Judging by the way he balanced the lengthening ash on the end, and the way his careless lips puckered just enough around it to keep it in place, it wasn’t his first cigarette, and I was fairly certain this was going to be an ongoing habit. Wonderful.

Still, looking closer at his face, I noticed his eyes fluttering behind closed lids, his dark, prominent, high-arching eyebrows furrowed tightly over them. His expression was thoroughly troubled, and I began to think that maybe he wasn’t the rough character I thought.

At the sound of the creaking door, a single, grey eye opened up to look at me, underneath that dark brow, raised high. I swallowed the lump in my throat down through clenched teeth.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A long drag on the cigarette between my lips filled my lungs with plumes of smoke. This new silence was unnerving, in some ways. No one was screaming at me, throwing things at me, shouting slanderous slurs down the hall toward my bedroom. If I thought about finally being away from my family, I would probably break down and cry from relief. I was free.

With a loud sigh to fill the quiet, I pushed my hands underneath my hair and let the cigarette hang perilously from my peaceful lips. The ash had accumulated on the end, just a flick away from falling down and singeing my chest, but I let it be. It wouldn’t be the first time the burning embers of a cigarette had contacted my skin. If I went home for holidays, it wouldn’t even be the last. I wondered what the university policy was on staying over Christmas break.

Music that my parents would never have approved of drifted throughout my room, and I smiled sadly at the lyrics of the current song. _“I just gotta get out of this prison cell, one day I’m gonna be free.”_ I remembered listening to these words at home, with tears rolling down my cheeks, wondering if I ever _would_ be free. Wondering I would ever find someone to love me, because my family certainly didn’t. They made it abundantly clear.

Just as I had closed my eyes again, I heard the squeaking of the dormitory door. That would be my roommate. Hopefully he wasn’t a rich, bigoted prick like my father. Curious, I opened a single eye to look over at him, and the smoke instantly caught in my throat.

The boy standing in the doorway, looking just as inquisitively at me as I was at him, was dressed in an old, faded burgundy jumper, the black trousers underneath practically grey from the number of times they had been run through the wash. His chestnut brown hair was an utter mess, curling and twisting around and above his head and dipping down into his deep brown eyes. Just over the bridge of his nose lay a long, deep scar, but old and softened and pink.

The heat of a blush rapidly filled my cheeks and I narrowly escaped choking on the unexpected smoke in my windpipe. His eyebrows, lighter in color than the hair on his head, but just as thick and unruly, furrowed in my direction, as if he were sizing me up, as I was doing to him. I cleared my throat, in an attempt to speak, but with his soft, brown eyes fixated on mine, I wasn’t sure I was going to get out much more than a squeak.  

“Are you my roommate, then?” I recovered, barely, my tone much more gruff than I had intended, from the smoke still trickling down my throat. His hopeful expression dropped and his gaze fell from mine. I was already kicking myself. So much for a first impression.

“Remus Lupin,” he said, his head down as he extended his hand toward me. I pretended to ignore the pounding of my heart, resounding in my ears, as I reached back.

“Sirius Black,” I responded quietly as our hands met. His grip was firm, contrasting to the softness of his skin, and I tried hard not to rub my thumb along the scar along the back of his hand. When I didn’t let go of him immediately, he finally looked up. At the sight of his bright, brown eyes, I realized I was still holding on to him, and yanked my hand back quickly. Again, at my sudden retraction, he lowered his gaze and moved toward his side of the room.

 

Dammit, I was fucking up _everything_.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, that was that. No surprise, he _had_ been staring at the scars on my face. Or, at least the most noticeable one. His voice was rough, coarse – probably from all the smoking – and his tone hadn’t exactly been excitable. Maybe he had been hoping for a roommate more like himself.

He had shaken my hand, at least. Though, I had noticed his thumb brush slightly over the scar across the back of my hand, and his eyes had widened at the sensation. Just like everyone in primary school. Just like everyone in secondary school. My life was a series of repeats.

I mulled over his last name, realizing that this was the son of Orion and Walburga Black. His family was so rich, they were practically royalty. Everybody in Britain knew the Black family name – and it wasn’t always associated with good things. I hoped Sirius to be different.

I had been trying to keep my head down, to keep him from having to look at the scars on my face, but he’d had his hand in mine for so long, I looked up to see why. At the sight of my face, he had pulled his hand back so fast, I was afraid he had given himself contact burns.

It’s not that I was at all surprised by his reaction. I might have been a little disappointed. After all, he was a good-looking guy – his steel grey eyes were enough alone to make the girls swoon, not to mention his enigmatically dark hair and the perfect, chiseled line of his jaw, so I was sure he had to be popular. As accustomed as I was to being alone, I had let a tiny grain of hope be planted in my heart at the prospect of having real friends in university.

It was fairly obvious that my roommate didn’t particularly like me upon first impression. Since we parted from our handshake, he had been keeping his eyes on the ceiling overhead, the cigarette still in his lips. No further attempts at conversation had been made. Except the occasional sigh. Again, not surprised. Even when I glanced over my shoulder, attempting to gain the courage to ask him which courses he was enrolled in, his eyes remained trained on the same spot on the ceiling. The ash on his cigarette was growing progressively longer.

 

The whole room smelled like mint and smoke.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  _Don’t check him out. Don’t look at his arse_. My powerless eyes finally flickered over to where he was unpacking his enormous chest (the imagery _that_ phrase poured into my indecent mind), lifting most of the contents onto the tall dormitory bed, and I was definitely not imagining the definition of his shoulders underneath his moth-eaten jumper.

 

The Queen song beat out in time to the rhythm of my pounding heart.

 

_“Find. Me. Somebody to Love. Find. Me. Somebody to Love. Somebody. Somebody.”_

 

As he raised his arms, the edge of his jumper upstretched and I was allowed a God-given glimpse of the back of his faded trousers. I inadvertently let out a tortured sigh – damn this stupid, little, adorable bookworm. I hadn’t _ever_ had a ready-made crush like this.

Much to my father’s vexation, I had turned down every match-making attempt he had ever tried to set me up on. After enough of these refusals, he berated me over being so picky about the type of girl I would settle for, and in a moment of anger and embarrassment, the truth poured out from my mouth. I didn’t want to get married. To a _girl_.

After that, I’d like to say I was nonexistent to him. I’d like to say he kicked me out of the house. I’d like to say he disowned me. Even that would have been better than the truth. Instead, he attempted to mercilessly beat me into submission and then force me to date an unnumbered amount of girls – girls that I usually didn’t even _like_. He even paid one of them to get me into bed, thinking that, in his words, ‘ _a good lay will snap you out of thinking you’re a fucking poofter_.’ When that obviously didn’t work, he put out his cigarette on my collarbone. I’d like to pretend that was the worst of the pain he put me through. Not even close.

 

As if on cue with my memory, the ridiculous length of ash on the end of my cigarette fell. Right into the open collar of my shirt. I let out a painful yelp, leaping to my feet and tearing the shirt from my shoulders, scattering the buttons over the room.

My new roommate turned at all the commotion just as I was carefully brushing the burning ash off my chest. Moving my cigarette into one corner of my mouth, I pulled my thumb across the other corner of my lips, darting my tongue out to wet it, and using my wet thumb to rub out the scorched place on my tie, and on my skin.

When I finally gained the composure to look up, I noticed my roommate – I should really start calling him by his actual name, and I would if it was Herman or Melvin or Keith, or not something so goddamn cute like _Remus_ – was looking peculiarly at me, but he was laughing, the smile on his face was mesmerizing. For a moment, we stood in awkward silence – me, bare from the waist up, except for my tie, and him suddenly trying to avoid any sort of visual contact with me – with my eyes or otherwise. Just then – and I hadn’t thought of this before – I started to wonder whether he was gay or not. If he wasn’t, and I expected he wasn’t when he walked into the room, then I had a long semester of fruitless pining ahead of me. If he _was_ … I let that thought consume me for a moment. Before he spoke.

“Your shirt’s on fire,” he stated blandly, without breaking my gaze.

 

I looked over quickly. Indeed. My shirt was ablaze.

 

“Shit,” I hissed as I stomped it into the carpet.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as I heard the bizarre screech from the opposite bed, I turned to watch my roommate – I should really start calling him by his first name, but I was really rather jealous of the fact that he was named after the brightest star in the sky, _Sirius_ – jump into the air, tearing at the buttons of his once well-pressed shirt and throwing it into the carpet.

Just as I was about to ask him what the hell had happened, using his tongue, he pushed the cigarette between his teeth over to one corner of his mouth without letting it fall, and I found another reason to be jealous of him. That skill probably made him a good kisser, and girls probably lined up to have a go at him. Meanwhile, I’d kissed a single girl once in my entire life and it was all timid and cold and I didn’t really see what all the fuss and excitement was about.

Once the cigarette was moved, he flicked his tongue out and wetted his thumb, pressing it to his red-and-gold-striped tie. A tiny hiss of a dying flame gave me the answer I had been looking for – the ashes of his cigarette had fallen into his shirt. I started to laugh, until he looked up at me, rubbing the pad of his thumb along a red patch of skin at the junction of his left and right collarbones, the length of his tie tossed over one of his shoulders.

The way that his grey eyes fell on me was in a manner with which I was entirely unfamiliar. Whatever it was, it caused an irregular beat in my heart. Was I _afraid_ of this bloke? Was I worried whether he was actually about to fight me over laughing at his misfortune? It had to be – there wasn’t any other reason that my breathing was suddenly shallow.

I kept my reaction suppressed – if he knew I was afraid of him, he might bully me through the entire semester. I straightened my shoulders, preparing to defend myself if he should make a move toward me, but a flicker of light caught the attention of my periphery.

“Your shirt’s on fire,” I mentioned, wondering why he hadn’t noticed. Immediately, he looked over at the smoke coiling from underneath the folds of his shirt.

“Shit,” he hissed, racing over to stomp out the flames. I wondered if there was a fee he was going to have to pay for the burn mark on the carpet underneath. Well, _I_ would have to pay, more likely, because I doubt he would admit to anything, especially not smoking in the dorms.

With a sigh of relief, I turned back toward the contents of my luggage chest. And thought hard about the contents of my _biological_ chest, because it felt like it was also on fire. Why was I so flustered by this idiot? I’d been beat up plenty of times in my life, and, in the process, discovered that I could take a punch better than anyone. There wasn’t anything that he could do to me that hadn’t already been done. Maybe it was the not knowing that rattled me – maybe he _could_ do something to me that I hadn’t already experienced. I swallowed hard at that idea.

I had to prevent this from becoming a legitimate fear. I had to appease this rebel god so that he would not smite me down for my insolence. With my fist clenched around a plain white T-shirt, and once the stomping of fires had ceased, I turned back to him, practically shoving the shirt into his chest. He took a surprised step back.

 “Here,” I mumbled, careful not to look him in the eyes. That provokes wild animals, evidently. And I was definitely not trying to provoke this one. I was also not trying to notice the round scar just underneath his right collarbone, separate from the one he may have just given himself. Though, maybe he had given himself the other, too. It did look like a cigarette burn, but not an accidental one. The round shape made it seem quite deliberate. But surely he wouldn’t have put out a cigarette on himself, intentionally, especially when he had made such a fuss over the accidental hot embers from this one. Either way, I didn’t mention it.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “Here,” he grumbled under his breath as he shoved a T-shirt into my face. In surprise at the sudden closeness of him, I stepped back and tried to calm my erratic breathing. He – _Remus_ – was keeping his eyes away from me – per his custom, so far.

“Uh, okay, thanks,” I stumbled through a reply, wondering why he was offering me a shirt out of nowhere. Sure, I had just set my own on fire, but I had others. I didn’t need his. Still, I definitely wasn’t going to refuse him, over _anything_ , and especially not over this. As soon as I took the soft shirt in my hands, I noticed it _smelled_ like him – like over-steeped Darjeeling tea, and dark chocolate, and musty books that hadn’t been read in decades. It smelled like _Remus_.

While I slipped the shirt over my head – completely encompassed in everything that my roommate was – I began to wonder about his intentions. Had he given me the shirt because he felt sorry that I had just burned mine to a crisp? Maybe he had given it to me because he was annoyed that I had stripped in front of him so quickly. Or perhaps the sight of me without a shirt provoked him an entirely different way. _That_ idea pricked at the insides of my skin.

But I pushed it from my mind. That was hopeful fantasy. Based on the way he had held the shirt out to me, his feelings probably lied somewhere between pity and annoyance. It had been the most accurate descriptor of his behavior. With that knowledge, I sighed, retreating back into my bed, but settling for leaning against the wall. I also made sure to grab the ashtray on my desk to prevent any further incident. All my _cool_ had been blown to hell.

Just as I had gathered the nerve to ask him which courses he was taking this term, hoping that I shared at least one, there was a loud, erratic knock on the door. Remus immediately looked back toward me, and I was given the impression that he knew it wouldn’t be for him.

By the knocking pattern, I should have known who it would be. But this roommate of mine had me so completely out of my senses, I opened the door without thinking.

 

My best friend flung himself into me so hard, I fell backward onto the carpet.

 

James didn’t even seem to notice that he was lying on top of me, until his girlfriend pulled him up by the back of his shirt collar, rolling her eyes all the while.

“Christ, Prongs, give me some warning,” I laughed, as I peeled myself up from the floor, and he just continued to grin wide underneath his square glasses and wild hair.

“He’s missed his boyfriend, is all,” Lily smiled sarcastically, twirling her dark red hair into a bun at the back of her head and securing it with a pencil from my desk.

“I’ve been waiting for you to get here for a _month_ , Padfoot,” James huffed in feign annoyance, a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes.

“It hasn’t been a month, James. It’s been less than a fortnight,” Lily laughed, pushing herself up onto my bed, swinging her feet from the edge. Once off the floor, I made a point to hug Lily first, much to the loud disagreement from her boyfriend.

“Come on, Pads,” James whined, trying to tug me off of Lily. “I’ve been cooped up in the flat with Lily for weeks, I need to get out. It’s like I’m married.” He made a throaty, phlegmy groan as Lily smacked him on the back of the head.

“Please borrow him from me,” she pleaded with a laugh.  

“I might steal him permanently if you’re not careful,” I purred into James’s ear and he pretended to go weak in the knees. Lily laughed loudly.

“I’ll agree to joint custody. But I get weekends and holidays,” she grinned mischievously, as James planted a sloppy kiss against her cheek. I felt a pang of envy at the way she looked at him afterward. I wanted that. Not from Lily, obviously, but from someone. Preferably my sweater aficionado roommate. I glanced over at him, but he didn’t seem interested in us, at all.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Swollen Tongues and Cigarette Burns: _ **

 At first, I thought the person tackling my roommate – sorry, _Sirius_ – was his boyfriend. They seemed closer than two males should be without some sort of sexual attraction. Until said boyfriend’s girlfriend walked into the room. Even then, their relationship dynamic was still relatively puzzling. Even Lily mentioned something about James (I’d overheard their names during the conversation) being Sirius’s boyfriend. They joked about joint custody of “Prongs” – I wasn’t sure where this nickname – or Padfoot, for that matter – came from. It didn’t seem that this Lily had one of these bizarre animal nicknames.

As I glanced back, I felt a sharp, familiar twinge of jealousy. Bizarre relationships aside, they all looked so mind-numbingly happy. Sirius’s smile was practically glowing; his silver eyes were like purified mercury. I wondered if I would ever be as happy as they were. If only I didn’t dwell so much in my own head, if only I wasn’t so self-conscious, I could probably be friends with these people. They seemed genuinely wonderful.

I scoffed at myself under my breath. I could never be friends with them. I could never be friends with anyone. Not for lack of trying. I tried to be overly kind, to be smart enough to hang out with the nerds, and rebellious enough to hang out with the cool kids. But the first thing anyone ever noticed about me was my scars. I wasn’t sure it would ever change.

“Lily, come with us. I’ve missed you, too, you know,” Sirius hummed. God, it was as if this bloke was built for the attraction of the opposite sex – his deep, pleading voice was melodious, like the drag of the lowest string on a violin. There was no way in hell he was single, not a girl on earth would turn a request down that was drenched in the velvet of that voice.

It was suddenly quiet, and I didn’t dare turn. I could practically feel their eyes on me.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I narrowed my eyes blatantly at Lily. She had that knowing smirk on her full, red lips, and I knew she was about to try to ruin my life. By ruin, I mean either potentially make infinitely better, or, you know, actually ruin it. She’d seen me glance over my shoulder a dozen times at my new roommate, just since she and James had come into the room.

About a year ago, she had tried to set me up on a date and I had to sit there, properly red in the face, as James delicately explained the reason why I wasn’t going to hit it off with her cute friend. Just like James – or maybe even more so – she was immediately and completely supporting, and I spent the next few months dating every gay friend she’d ever had. They were all perfectly nice blokes, but it never seemed to work out.

 

If I believed in fate, it would be in this moment.

 

But, dammit to hell, I didn’t even know if Remus _liked_ blokes. He might be as straight as a bloody ruler and all this flailing for his attention would be for nothing. The look on Lily’s face told me she wasn’t going to give up until she knew for sure.

Eyes wide, I shook my head, slicing across my throat with my fingers _. ‘Don’t screw this up or I’ll kill you.’_ In response, she just smiled like the cat that got the cream. James stood between us, exchanging glances back and forth, with a curious grin on his face. He’d stay out of it, mostly, but he was definitely not going to stop Lily from meddling.

Her smile still in place, she motioned to Remus – his back was still turned, thank God – and then to the three of us and then to the door. The intensity of my head shaking increased – she could _not_ invite him to go out with us, because I knew exactly what she would do. She would find some excuse to get the two of us alone and I would be utterly tongue-tied around him.

Which was the complete opposite of how I usually was. With anyone else, I was smooth, charming, collected. In secondary school, the girls were falling all over themselves to have a go at me – which was terrible for them, considering I wasn’t interested. On the dates that Lily had set me up on, I had them smitten by the appetizer.

So why was I so immediately undone by this bloke? He looked to be completely opposite to me. He wasn’t meticulous over his appearance, evidenced by his disheveled hair and his less-than-fashionable choice in clothing. He wasn’t from a wealthy family like I was – the quality and wear of his clothes and used books were proof of that. He would probably rather stay inside with a good cup of tea and a book than go out to the pub with friends.

“Who’s your new roommate then, Sirius?” Lily asked, her eyes glued to me until Remus turned, at which point she began to smile brightly in his direction. I continued to glare at her.

“Remus,” my roommate replied in a soft voice, and I bit down onto my bottom lip. Lily wasn’t going to let this go. I knew she just wanted me to be happy, but I was going to kill her.

“Remus, I’m Lily Evans, this is James Potter. Would you like to go …” she began, and I had to stop her. I hadn’t gotten used to him yet, I was still all swollen tongue and cigarette burns and trembling hands. I needed some time to acclimate to him, to get used to him, to not be so flustered by him. I needed time to formulate a plan to win him over.

“I’m sure he’s busy, Lil,” I interrupted quickly. “Don’t bother the poor boy.” With pursed lips, I turned back to Lily and gave her a face, covered by pleading eyes. _‘Drop it. Please.’_ As I glanced back over at Remus, he gave me a single look under furrowed brows before turning back to his luggage, taking in a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he said quietly as he let out the air in his lungs. “I probably wouldn’t enjoy myself at a place that people like Sirius tend to frequent.” My mouth fell open. Lily’s closed.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I had been trying so hard to keep out of their conversation, but the red-haired girl pulled me in against my will. Admittedly, it was nice that she thought of me.

“Remus, I’m Lily Evans, this is James Potter. Would you like to go …” she began to offer and my heart began to pound with anxiety. Where were they all going? Why did she want me to go? Had she not gotten a good look at my scars? She didn’t even know me; why would she invite a stranger? More importantly, would I accept? I was mildly interested in getting to know more people, but I had no idea what kind of people they were – what exactly was I going to get myself into if I accepted?

 

Before she could finish her invitation, my roommate spoke up with a huff.

 

“I’m sure he’s busy, Lil,” he interrupted, glaring harshly at her. “Don’t bother the poor boy.” His voice was strained, through clenched teeth, but there was an underlying snide tone.

Surely, he wasn’t making a remark over the fact that I was _actually_ poor. Based on his clothes, his posh accent, his proper posture, his _name_ , I knew he was raised with money. Not just upper middle class, either. His family was old money – wealthy beyond their means and pretentious enough to want to prove it to every person they ever met.

Suddenly, my blood was _boiling_. I had never felt such emotion around anyone. Not even the bullies in secondary school could elicit such a strong reaction. This prick could make all the snarky comments he wanted on my scars, on my hair, on my books – but I wasn’t about to let him belittle my family. My mother and father had worked endlessly to be able to afford sending me to uni. They were the only ones I could ever count on. He wasn’t going to get away with this.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to let out a slow, calming breath, but it only sped my heart rate. “I probably wouldn’t enjoy myself at a place that people like _Sirius_ tend to frequent.” The entire room went silent. Sirius’s mouth fell open, as if he couldn’t believe I would actually speak to him that way. Lily’s mouth, however, promptly closed – she pursed her lips to keep it that way.

“People like _me_?” he asked, a sarcastic brow raised his on his forehead. His mercury grey eyes were lit with liquid fire. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means, _Black_ ,” I spat out his last name, as if it insulted me to even speak it. Never, _never_ had I had a confrontation so direct. With anyone. Especially not one that I started myself. Something about this bloke brought out the ferocity in me.

Sirius narrowed his eyes at me and stepped up into my face, despite Lily’s hand wrapped tightly around his forearm. “Maybe you should have the guts to say it out loud, _Lupin_.”

“Sirius, please,” Lily whispered softly from behind him. It was too late for that. In response, I squared my shoulders, our chests leveled and anxiously heaving in synchronicity.

“I refuse to drink with someone whose father pays for his scotch,” I growled and I watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed hard, his mouth closed tightly, biting on the inside of his bottom lip. Alarmingly, he seemed nervous and I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe my height intimidated him. Maybe my scars gave him the impression that I knew my way around a fist fight, which was the total opposite of the truth. Either way, this close, his entire demeanor changed. His eyes traveled across my face and I could feel his soft breath falling against my cheek, the hint of lingering cigarette smoke drifting into my lungs.

Before I realized I was doing it, my eyes flickered down to his pink lips, where his teeth were worrying them, creating a bright red beacon for my attention. I felt a sudden rush of heat to my cheeks and it was then that I became conscious of what I was doing. My eyes widened slightly, and I took a large step away from my roommate, of whom I had begun to notice how his defined chest was stretching out the shirt I had loaned him, and how the shadow of dark stubble on his face was deepening the caverns under his cheekbones, and the way his molten silver eyes were traveling over every inch of my skin. The flush in my cheeks spread south.

What the fuck was I thinking? Attractive or not, Sirius was a _bloke_. No, _no_ , Sirius was not attractive to me _, at all._ I could appreciate the fact that a girl would think that, but I was his roommate, his _male_ roommate, and I was not attracted to him. This was not happening.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

 “People like _me_?” I enunciated my need for clarification. What the hell had I done to him? Why was he suddenly so hostile toward me? “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means, _Black_ ,” he said, spewing my last name from his mouth as if it were poison on his tongue. His brown eyes were glowing with anger. This was completely unlike the shy, reserved boy who had walked through the dormitory door. Of course, I had known him for less than an hour, but this was the opposite of anything he’d seemed to be so far.  

And I was completely, helplessly drawn in by it – the way the color of his eyes seemed to intensify and brighten, turning from brown to amber in an instant, and the way his chest underneath his faded jumper heaved with anxious breath, and the way his light brown hair curled down into eyes, catching on every upward blink of his lashes. I had to get closer.

“Maybe you should have the guts to say it out loud, _Lupin_ ,” I spoke in the same manner he had given me as I domineeringly stepped up to meet his gaze. I could pretend that I wasn’t trying to provoke him, but God _damn_ , the passion emanating from him was intoxicating.

He straightened his shoulders, lining up his body to mine, and with every anxious breath, the fibers of his sweater brushed against my chest. He was slightly taller than me, but the closeness of our situation put my lips very nearly on top of his. I tried to breathe.

“Sirius, please,” Lily said in a hushed tone as she held my forearm. I wondered if she thought she was holding me back from punching Remus or kissing him.

“I refuse to drink with someone whose father pays for his scotch,” he said roughly, the bittersweet scent of black tea with sugar falling from his lips and into mine. At the idea of what his tongue would taste like, and the sound of his voice in a nearly dominant growl, I clamped my mouth shut, swallowing hard and chewing on the inside of my lip. My breathing became sporadic as I scoured his face with my eyes – counting the number of freckles across his face, memorizing the soft edges of the scar that ran over the bridge of his nose.

Suddenly – I wondered if I had imagined it – his eyes fluttered down to where I was steadily nibbling on my bottom lip. No, I couldn’t have imagined it, because they stayed there, and I could’ve sworn I heard a hitch in his once steady, albeit angry, breathing. 

Before I could do or say anything, a bright flush of pink spread across his face and he took an overly wide step backward, toward his bed. I didn’t fail to notice that his eyes began unwillingly traveling over the rest of me until he nearly immediately corrected his gaze.

 

What _was_ this? Had he been _attracted_ to me just now?

 

A quiet smile crossed over my lips as I thought of the possibility of it. But Lily’s hand on my arm increased in strength and she pulled me back. Remus let his eyes glance up for a split second and as they met mine, I slowly rose a single eyebrow. His blushing intensified.

“Come on, Sirius. Leave him alone,” Lily ordered, looking more at James than at either of us as she pulled me toward the door. Remus pointedly kept his eyes away from me as we left.

I was silent the entire length of the hallway, trying to gauge what had just happened between my roommate and I. The further we got from the room, the longer time spanned since the events, the less I was sure. Maybe I had been reading Remus the way I wanted to read him, the way I wished I could read him. I talked myself out of it, more and more.

“What was that?” Lily hissed, even though Remus was well out of range.

“Did the two of have a row before we got there?” James piped up as we walked down the stairs to the bottom level of the dormitory. I shook my head.

“No. We barely spoke,” I replied with a loud sigh, running my fingers through my long hair. “Well, at least we know your idea is out, Lil.” She pursed her lips to one side.

“I’m not entirely sure about that. I think he was blushing.”

I exploded into words. “You saw it too? I was sure it was all in my head.”

“Do you think he’s gay, then?” James asked as we walked across the street into the nearest pub – Lily seemed surprised there was one so close to campus.

“If he is, I’m not sure he’s ready to admit it,” Lily replied pensively, before her face brightened, and she turned to me. “What subject is he reading?”  

“I’ve no idea. He’s got me too tongue-tied to ask,” I sighed again.

“What?” James laughed loudly as we took a table at the pub. “ _Our_ Sirius Black, at a loss for words?” I smiled sarcastically while flipping him the finger.

“Sod off, Prongs. He’s bloody adorable, alright?” I groaned, placing my head into my hands and propping my elbows up on the table as Lily ordered us a round.

“Don’t worry, Sirius,” Lily smiled cunningly as she handed me a pint. “I’ve got a plan.”

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Divination: _ **

 As soon as I backed away from him, I couldn’t help but notice a soft smile cover Sirius’s lips, and by that point, I couldn’t _stop_ looking at his lips. Or any of the rest of him.

Is that what this was? Was I actually attracted to a _bloke_? I had been attracted to girls in the past, plenty of girls, even though that first kiss hadn’t been all that magical. So what did that make me? Not entirely gay, but not entirely straight. They had a term for it, now, right?

Maybe it was circumstantial – maybe it was the extreme closeness of another person that had flustered me so properly. I glanced back up at him to repeat the experiment, to see if I could duplicate the results. As soon as my eyes fell on his, he let one of his dark, high-arching brows raise ever so slightly, and I felt the familiar rush of heat through my cheeks. As well as other concerted regions of my body. I couldn’t hold his intense gaze – I looked away quickly.

“Come on, Sirius. Leave him alone,” Lily replied softly, pulling him toward the door. As soon as the door was closed behind them, I let out a long, slow breath and dragged my fingers down my face. This was a possibility I had _never_ considered.

It may have been the constant bullying during school, but boys had never attracted my attention. Girls were always softer, kinder, prettier than boys. Except, now there was _Sirius_. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized – he was prettier than any girl I’d ever seen. He’d definitely evoked a stronger reaction than any girl ever had.

Just the memory of him standing in front of me just now, breathing in his concentrated menthol cloud and wondering if that was how his tongue tasted – Jesus, it felt like my whole body instantly tensed. I groaned loudly, draping myself over the mattress of my bed.

No, this whole thing was ridiculous. I’d give in and admit that I may have had a passing attraction to Sirius Black. But maybe it was nothing more than pent up sexual tension being projected onto the nearest warm body. Unfortunately for me, it was directed at someone who was evidently disgusted at my very existence.

I was going to get over this. Even if I had to never speak to my roommate again, I was not going to cave into stupid, testosterone-fueled appetite. If anything, I could take care of this problem myself, and this crush – if you could even call it that – would be over.

Before I could eagerly start on that endeavor, there was a knock on my dorm room door. I knew it wasn’t Sirius – he would have a key – so I hesitantly cracked open the door to see the face of Sirius’s friend, Lily. She smiled.

“Hi, Remus. Can I come in?” I furrowed my brows but opened the door, nonetheless.

“Of course,” I replied. She had, after all, been very kind to me earlier. For a moment after I closed the door behind her, awkward silence filled the room. It was kind of suffocating.

“Listen, I wanted to apologize for Sirius’s behavior,” she sighed, leaning back against his bed and crossing her arms over her mid-section. I shook my head.

“No need,” I said with a shallow breath, wondering if the reason I had lashed out at Sirius had anything to do with this _craving_ I was having for him. Maybe I had just wanted him to notice me, to pay attention to me, to be close to me. Oh God, this was getting out of hand.

“He’s really a sweet person,” she tried to argue, evidently not getting my point.

“It was my fault,” I finally admitted. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” she asked and my heart began to pound just thinking of being close enough to speak to him. I glanced over at her, imagining that my reaction to her statement was blatantly obvious, but she just continued to smile.

“I’m not sure he would let me,” I mumbled under my breath and she straightened up.

“Remus, he’s not ...” she began, and I cut her off. I couldn’t let this go on any further. I needed to distance myself from Sirius Black. And if everyone, including the man himself, thought that I hated him, then so be it. Because the alternative was not an option.

“I appreciate what you’re doing, but Sirius and I will _never_ be friends,” I snapped, sending Lily back against the frame of the bed. “He’s rich, yeah? Blueblood? Why is he even here? Why isn’t he at Cambridge or Oxford or Newcastle? Oh, let me guess – he’s slacked off his whole life and his parent’s money couldn’t buy his way in to anywhere except here. Well, unlike Sirius bleeding Black, my parents worked their whole lives to afford to send me to uni. And I’m not going to waste my time and energy trying to befriend that pompous arsehole.” By the time I finished my speech, my chest was heaving, my fists were clenched, and Lily was staring at me through wide, green eyes, filled with surprise at my rant.

What the hell had I just said? Where had outburst come from? I had intended to let her assume on her own that I didn’t particularly like Sirius, not paint her a vivid portrait of it. But that whole tirade was _not_ me at all – I wasn’t the type of person who rejected someone based on their background. After all the bullying I had gone through in my youth, after all of my peers had ridiculed _me_ for something I had no control of – why would I do the same thing to someone else?

Maybe I was doing this to sabotage myself. I knew this would get back to Sirius, after all. Lily was bound to tell him. If Sirius quit speaking to me, then this phase I was going through would pass that much more quickly. In fact, the sooner, the better.

Lily took a deep breath. “There’s a lot more to Sirius than just his family’s name.”

 

Of course there was – there was his dove-grey eyes embedded with shimmering flecks of charcoal, and his soft, pink lips that surely tasted of wintergreen and fresh smoke, and the range of his waist, too expansive to be completely covered by my borrowed shirt.

 

“I’m sure there is,” I sighed quietly. I expected her to leave with the lull in the conversation, and my verbal abuse of one of her friends, but she remained.

“What are you studying, Remus?” she asked suddenly. I glanced back. When I didn’t answer right away, she began listing subjects.

 

“Potions, transfiguration, herbology, divination…” she listed, counting on her fingers.

 

For a single moment, as she listed the bizarre courses, it felt as if the room were spinning around me – there was a swirl of colors and lights and sounds. Suddenly, I was sitting at a table, across from Lily and James, and next to a blonde boy that I didn’t recognize. A thousand conversations were drowning out the one happening right in front of me, and I raised my head to see that we were seated at an incredibly long, wooden table. The room we were sitting in could only be described as a giant ballroom, vaulted ceilings that reached higher than I could see – or maybe opened up to the sky, I was sure I could see stars twinkling. There were three other tables, just like ours, all filled with children of various ages. I began to notice that each table was color-coordinated – the one in which I found myself was drenched in deep red and bright gold. As I looked down, I found myself wearing a tie in the same two colors, under a grey jumper. In fact, so was everyone at the table – girls included. 

“Wotcher, Moony?” I heard to my left and my head snapped around to look up into the face of Sirius, who was standing at the table, looking quite perplexed at my reaction.

“Sirius?” I breathed out. At the sound of his own name, he swallowed, holding my gaze for a moment before letting his eyes travel across my face. His porcelain skin was glowing in the early daylight, the reflection of his eyes like a deep, mercury pool. As his tongue darted out to wet his full lips, I felt a hitch in my breathing. This crush was not lessening. At all.

“Remus,” he said, his voice deeper and smoother than I was used to.  

 

“Remus?” I heard and my reality snapped back to the forefront – I was returned to my university dorm room. And Lily was looking strangely at me.

“Sorry, what did you say?” I clarified, though I could remember exactly what I had thought she had been saying. But it definitely hadn’t been university courses.

“I asked what you’re studying. You know, art, English, science …”

“English Literature and History,” I finally responded breathlessly.

 

What in God’s name was happening to me? What was it I had just seen? It was certainly a place I had never been to – it was practically a castle. Was this a dream I’d had? That had to be it – it had to have been a dream, and I was only just now remembering it.

Wait. Sirius had been in it. I’d only just met Sirius an hour ago. James and Lily, too. Not to mention the anonymous blonde boy who had been sitting next to me. My head began to hurt.

 

“What a coincidence. Me too,” she grinned, and I tried to focus on our conversation instead of the insanity I felt building in my veins. I had just told her my field of study.

“You too?” I laughed, making an effort to calm the drumming of my heart.

“And unfortunately for you, that pompous arsehole and his boyfriend – I mean _my_ boyfriend, sorry – will be in the introductory drama course with us.” In defeat, I let my head fall forward. Of course, the pompous arsehole will be in a _drama_ course. It was perfect for him.

“Wonderful,” I huffed sarcastically outwardly, but inwardly, I felt ecstatic at getting an excuse to look at him on a semi-regular basis. Oh my God, what the hell was wrong with me?

“Give him a chance, Remus,” she said, pushing herself from the bed frame and meandering back toward the door. “He’s not as bad as you think.” She gave me one last smile before she left, and I drew in a long breath as the door fell closed.

“No. I’m sure he’s much worse,” I mumbled to myself.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “You’ve never been mad over someone like this before. Why him?” James asked, sipping through the foam at the top of his beer. I could only shake my head.

“Your guess is as good as mine. It was instantaneous, though, you know? As soon as he walked in the room, I knew. It was like a bloody neon sign.” I hadn’t even touched my beer – I had my hair tangled up in my fingers, keeping my head from falling onto the table.

“But you don’t know anything about him,” James retorted, eyeing me skeptically. I knew exactly how this sounded – it sounded bloody mental. But it wasn’t like I had made a conscious choice to feel this strongly about Remus. It just happened.

“Nah, I know a few things,” I remarked back, finally burying my lips into the foam of my beer. James laughed in disbelief and without setting my drink down, I punched him.

“You said yourself the two of you barely spoke. What all could you know?” he scoffed.

“I know he likes Darjeeling tea and rich chocolates. I can tell that he spends a great deal of his free time reading, meaning that he probably doesn’t socialize much. His family isn’t rich, by any means, but they’re all he has and he defends them fiercely,” I spouted off a seemingly random list of things as James stared, bewilderingly.

“Are you taking the piss?” he asked with one raised brow. I groaned. “How could you possibly know all that?” I pinched at the white t-shirt I had on, pulling the collar from my neck.

“I’m wearing his shirt. I can smell it – the tea, the chocolate, the books. It’s seeped into the threads of his clothes.” I bunched the fabric into a fist.

“Blimey, Pads, you’ve got it worse than I thought,” he breathed out as he fell back against the back of his chair. “Wait, why are you wearing his shirt?” he almost laughed.

“Because I lit mine on fire,” I shrugged. He stared at me wildly. “Long story.”

“Alright then, how did you know that bit about his family?” I took a long sip before continuing. James waited impatiently, drumming his fingers on the edge of the tabletop.

“His luggage was an old chest, rigged with a few wheels. He probably inherited it from his father and he keeps it out of fondness, but maybe he can’t afford a new one. Besides, did you hear the way he spat out my last name? He knows who I am, and he’s already decided there’s a class division between us. It might be why he blew up, earlier. When I rescinded Lily’s offer to join us, he probably took it as an insult.” James sat there, slack-jawed for a few moments.

“You know, if you put this much effort into anything important, you’d probably be in bloody MI6, you twat,” he grinned, leaning over to flick my earlobe. I playfully flinched.

“Sod off, Potter,” I smiled into my beer.

“Why _didn’t_ you let Lily invite him? Wouldn’t that have been perfect for you?”

I sighed loudly. “I just should have. But he makes me so goddamn nervous, Prongs, and I’m not used to being nervous. I’ve no idea how he does this to me.”

“It might not be him doing it to you. Full moon’s tonight, you know. It does funny things to people,” he said, and as he spoke, my head began to feel fuzzy. Apparently, he was right.

 

He continued his thought, “Especially Remus.”

 

I looked over at him in confusion, but my vision began to blur considerably. I’d barely even had a pint, there was no possible way I was this pissed already. James’s face went completely out of my sight as his words repeated in my brain. _Especially Remus._ How could he know anything about Remus? What did the full moon have to do with him, anyway?

Just as I had begun to reach out to grip onto James’s shoulder for support, my vision cleared – I was suddenly lying in an unfamiliar bed, my arm still outstretched from where I had just been reaching toward James. It was an elaborate four-poster bed, not that much different from my bed at home, but the sheets were bathed in shades of burgundy and gold, and the canopy above me was a deep maroon. I lay still for a moment, trying to figure out what in the bloody hell was going on. Had I fallen asleep? Was this a dream?

The drapes that closed off my canopy bed ruffled next to me, and I recoiled away from the movement, only to see Remus poke his head through the split curtains. His dusty brown hair was completely disheveled, the bags under his eyes were nearly black, and there were a few new scratches across his neck – ones that hadn’t been there an hour ago.

“Pads, I’m freezing,” he moaned, his voice tired and deep. I shuddered involuntarily. Before I could say anything in response, he pushed back the blankets that covered me – and I discovered that I was only wearing a pair of black, satin boxers.

“I’m sorry I always get so cold after a transformation,” Remus whispered, not seeming to take notice of my nearly naked state as he crawled into the open space beside me. I quickly realized it was because he was also only in boxers, his red and gold plaid. My greedy eyes scattered over every available inch of his skin – scarred as it was, it didn’t matter. I wanted to run my tongue over those scars, especially the one stretched across one of his angular hip bones.

My heart was already pounding, I was afraid Remus would be able to hear it, from how close he suddenly was to me. It became even worse when he pressed himself against my side, nuzzling his chin against my bare chest.

“It’s okay, Remus,” I breathed out slowly, wrapping my arm around him. I had no idea what kind of transformation he was talking about, but, with him this close, I didn’t care. With one hand around his waist, my fingers could feel the scar on his hip I had just been ogling.

Still, as I said his name, he looked up at me, an amused expression on his adorable face, but I wasn’t sure of the reason. “You almost never call me Remus,” he said in a whisper.

I let myself play into this fantasy, and I laughed. “Well, what else would I call you?”

A sarcastic laugh bubbled from his lips, and I had to refrain from leaping forward and claiming that laugh with my own mouth. “You’re the one who came up with _Moony_.”

“Moony,” I repeated, smiling, and he seemed to nuzzle further into me, then. At his unexpected movement, my fingers, rubbing over the softened scar on his hip, pushed down into the waist of his boxers and I suddenly exhaled the breath I was holding, harder than I should’ve.

“You’re so warm, Pads,” he hummed against my skin and I could feel the heat he was referring to spread to all regions of my body. When he looked up at me with those warm, chocolate eyes, I couldn’t help but whimper pathetically. His eyes instantly softened.

 

“Oi, earth to Padfoot,” I heard James’s voice as I was pulled back to the real world. Remus Lupin’s face suddenly disappeared and was replaced by James Potter’s.

“God dammit,” I muttered, placing my face into my hands. It had been so real. I could still feel Remus’s long, but surprisingly warm fingers skittering across my bare waist.

“I guess it _is_ the full moon,” James laughed. I could barely even shake my head.

“Did you say something about Remus just now? Something like ‘ _especially Remus’_?”

James cocked an eyebrow. “Mate, you really are sick over this bloke.”

“Tell me about it,” I groaned. “I just had the weirdest déjà vu.” I wasn’t really sure what else to call it. It wasn’t a place I had ever been in, certainly not with Remus. It couldn’t have been a dream from the night before, because I hadn’t even met Remus until an hour ago.

I was still swimming in my own head when Lily came back up to the table.

“You’re in luck, Black,” she said with a shit-eating grin. “He’s in our introductory drama course.” Suddenly, the swimming feeling felt like drowning, but drowning in the most perfectly cool, calm ocean. I took in a deep breath, expecting my lungs to fill with salt water.

“So what’s he reading?” I choked out.

“English Literature and History,” she repeated, and I smiled sheepishly.

“You did say he likes old books,” James laughed, slapping me hard on the back, which only induced greater coughing fits. “I wonder what else you were right about.”

I cleared my throat, looking curiously at the expression on Lily’s face. “He knows who I am, doesn’t he?” I asked. She nodded solemnly and I let my head fall, my long hair cascading over my face, enveloping my field of vision in an abysmal, dark bubble.

“And he’s quite opinionated about it,” she said quickly, just before pursing her lips, and I didn’t fail to notice how quickly the movement of her mouth drew James’s attention.

“I’m sure he thinks I’m just like my father,” I sighed, pulling my fingers up and through my hair, pushing it back out of my face. Lily looked sympathetically at me.

“He did apologize first, if that matters,” she consoled and I nodded.

“Thanks, Lil.” She reached out and gave my hand a squeeze.

“Another round. On me,” she winked at James as he whooped in excitement. I just let myself fall backward against the back of my chair, smiling at the two of them.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Peter: _ **

 There was still an entire weekend before classes started. In other words, unless Sirius stayed out all day and night with James and Lily, I was going to be stuck in the same room with him for at least the next 48 hours. If it were anyone else, I would be wholly indifferent toward him. I would bury myself in a good fiction novel and ignore him completely. But it was Sirius. And Sirius had my mind entirely entranced. I couldn’t think about anything else.

I had tried reading one of my favorite books, but Sirius unexpectedly invaded the back of my mind and colonized it, until I was only staring at words on a page. Next, I tried opening a window, to get rid of some of the lingering cigarette smoke hanging in the air, but by that point, it had crept into the threads of my clothes, and once I noticed it there, it was all I could smell.

What I needed was to get out of that room. I had to forget about this hold that a proper stranger had over me. It wasn’t until I had grabbed the closest book and dashed from the room that I remembered the reason I was a hermit. In the halls, people instantly looked up at the scars on my face. My eyes immediately drew to the floor and I shuffled my feet to hurry along.

I just wanted a quiet place to read. A nice, large tree that I could sit underneath and let the wind blow away the smell of menthol cigarettes from my jumper. It wasn’t a bad smell, actually, but that was part of the problem. It made me want to press myself against Sirius and breathe it in from the source. Right up against the sharp line of his jaw, with my fingers in his long hair.

In an effort to rid myself of that ridiculous notion, I opened my book and furiously began trying to read while walking. Of course, that caused me to run right into the person walking oppositely of me, as he was buried nose deep in a campus map.

“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled as I looked up. When he pulled his face from the map, the breath caught in my throat. It was the anonymous blonde boy. He was _a real person_?

“No, my fault, mate,” he said with a genuine smile and as his eyes fell on my scars, it almost seemed like his smile only intensified. “Peter Pettigrew.” He shoved his map hastily down into his jacket pocket and reached his hand out to shake mine. I hesitantly reciprocated.

“Remus Lupin,” I replied quietly, still unsure of why he was befriending me.

“Remus,” he replied thoughtfully. “That sounds familiar. Have we met?”

I almost laughed. “No, I don’t think so,” I said, vividly remembering his face as he had been sitting next to me in that great hall. I wondered if he could see the confusion on my face.

 “What’re you reading, if you don’t mind me asking?” he wondered as his steps fell in time with my own, despite the fact that he had been heading in the complete opposite direction before we had crashed into each other. I wasn’t sure if I should smile or be wary of him.

“Umm,” I hummed, looking at the cover for the first time. I’d grabbed it, and was pretending to read it so fervently, I hadn’t actually comprehended what it was. “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” I finally responded and he nodded, as if in complete understanding.

“Any good?” he asked and I let out a short laugh.

“Sinfully so,” I grinned. Peter looked semi-perplexed, but didn’t press it.

“What’re you studying this term, Remus?” I had a feeling he kept saying my name to try and place where it was he thought he knew me from. The better question was where did I know _him_ from? Obviously, I’d seen him before or I couldn’t have had a waking dream about him.

 

Well, if I was being honest, it was about Sirius. Peter just happened to be in it.

 

“English Literature and History,” I replied, as the pitch in my voice involuntarily raised as I was reminded of the way Sirius had said my name in the dream. Peter’s smile grew.

“So we’ll be in introductory drama together, then,” he said. I had to laugh at that point, and while Peter looked quizzically at me, his smile remained. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that the boy even knew how to frown. It was starting to grow on me.

“Everyone I know so far is in that class,” I explained. “Apparently.”

“Well, that’s lucky for me, then, because I don’t know anyone here.” I continued to be surprised at his pure genuineness. I had never met anyone who hadn’t instantly judged me. Or, at least, I assumed was judging me. For whatever reason, around Peter, I felt entirely composed, which was superbly unusual, considering I was anxiety incarnate. 

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I smirked. “I only know three people, and one of them is a certified arsehole. The girl’s nice, but the jury’s still out on the other bloke.” As I sat down under the tallest, shadiest tree I could find, Peter settled into the grass next to me, leaning back against the trunk and resting his hands underneath his head.

“Did you go to secondary school with him?” I glanced over at him, but his eyes were closed, the bright blonde of his eyelashes glimmering in the sunlight peeking between the leaves.

“What? Why would you think that?” I wondered. He opened a single eye at me.

“Well, you seem to know him. I mean, how do you know he’s a certified arsehole?” he asked, closing his one eye again and nestling down between the roots of the tree.

“He’s my roommate,” I grumbled. Peter smiled without opening either eye.

“So what did he do?” I took a deep breath and let it out loudly.

“For one, he’s Sirius bloody Black,” I sighed, running my fingers through my already disheveled hair. Peter immediately sat up and stared at me.

“Sirius Black? Are you having me on?” he practically shouted. I shook my head.

“Afraid not,” I moped, “Worse still, he’s just as you’d expect him to be.” Peter looked ponderingly at me for a moment, before realization struck him.

“Stereotypical rich snob?” he clarified, and I nodded.

“Lily … that’s the girl – she tried to invite me out for drinks, I guess, with her and Sirius and James – that’s Sirius’s best friend, from what I can gather, and Lily’s boyfriend. Sirius made a thinly veiled jab at my being poor, and made sure I was uninvited.” In response, Peter slumped back against the tree and stared at an empty space in front of him. While his face was contorted in sympathy for my situation, it was still not technically a frown.

“What a certified arsehole,” he chuckled, his smile returned. “What did you do?”

“I got right in his face and told him I wouldn’t share a drink with someone who relied on his father to buy his liquor for him,” I said through a shuddering voice. I tried to pretend, mostly to myself, that the reason I was so worked up was because I was so enraged at Sirius for trying to belittle me. Though, it was impossible to trick my body into thinking this _stimulation_ wasn’t because of something entirely different.

But I had to try. At this point, it had nothing at all to do with the fact that Sirius was a bloke. If I was attracted to a bloke, then so be it. But it could _not_ be Sirius fucking Black. He was everything I could possibly hate, rolled into a single person. He was the kind of person who flaunted his money in the face of those less fortunate. The type of arsehole who would purposefully disrupt class because, hell, he’s not paying for his education, why should he give a shit? Sirius Black was exactly the kind of bloke who would bully me relentlessly, if given the chance. Especially if he found out the kinds of things I had been thinking about him.

“Remus?” Peter said suddenly, bringing me out of my consuming thoughts.

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head and pasting a smile onto my strained expression. “So, Pete, what are you studying, then?” He smiled with all his teeth.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “Sirius, don’t be ridiculous,” Lily shrugged flippantly as I stared out the window, eyes wide. I felt the muscles in my jaw clench. “Besides, you don’t know that’s what’s going on.”

“Yeah. And there’re other fish in the sea, mate,” James advised with a cliché, totally detached from my plight. I pulled my cemented gaze from the window only to glare at him.

“The two of you can cram a right sock in it,” I griped at I turned my attention back to the window behind me, where I was gifted a wonderful view of Remus – with another bloke. The blonde boy was fairly cute. Not my type, really, but cute enough.

Lily was right – I couldn’t possibly know what was going on with the two of them. After all, I wasn’t even positive that Remus was gay, despite how fervently I wished he was. Still, seeing him smile that warmly made me ache in jealousy over the knowledge that he would likely never smile that warmly at _me_. I had already so royally fucked up our minimal relationship.

“You might as well give up on the bookworm, Pads,” James said, through sipping his beer. “He’s made it pretty clear how he feels about you.” With a loud, irritated sigh, I let my head fall in a rolling cascade of dark hair. Without looking up, I reached out and took James by the shoulders, working my hands up to his cheeks, where I patted patronizingly.

“Prongs, darling, don’t you think if I could willingly give up on the bookworm, I would have done so?” I asked sweetly, peering at him from underneath my hair with a raised brow.

“Come on, Sirius, be reasonable,” Lily said, craning her neck to look into my face.

“There is no _reason_ to this, Lil,” I sighed, leaning my head back, running my fingers through my hair to push it back out of my field of view. My gaze returned to the window just in time to see Remus laugh softly, as the blonde boy beamed at him. I groaned audibly.

“But I just don’t understand it. He’s not even your type,” Lily commented, probably in an attempt to make me snap out of this _spell_ Remus had me under, but it wasn’t working.

“That’s just it. Maybe he _is_ ,” I emphasized. “Maybe that’s why nothing’s ever worked out for me before. Because I’ve been looking at the wrong type.”

“I’ll say,” James laughed loudly. “You started with girls.” I punched him in the chest.

“Tell you what, Black,” Lily said, a mischievous smile suddenly on her lips. “Maybe I’ll do some reconnaissance for you. He and I have the same major. I’ll get him to tutor me.”

“Lily,” James rolled his eyes. “You were the top of every class in secondary school.”

“Remus doesn’t know that!” she hissed, ruffling his hair. He just grinned.

“Thanks for the offer, Lil. But I think I’m on my own with this one,” I said with a deep sigh, plopping my face down into the palms of my hands, as I stared out the window. Remus and the anonymous blonde boy were still sitting under the same tree – they were no longer engaged with each other, but they looked entirely comfortable sitting in silence together. I felt my chest begin to ache, and I didn’t even understand why.

“Need another pint?” James asked intuitively. I nodded.

“Hell yes,” I mumbled between my fingers.

 

“Shit,” I muttered, fumbling with my keys outside the door to my room. It was nearly midnight – I had spent the whole night drowning my romantic woes in successive pints of beer, and honestly, I probably had a little more than I should’ve.

I was trying desperately to be quiet. My roommate surely would have long since gone to bed, and I didn’t want to give him another reason to hate me, other than the one I had no control over. The more I’d thought about it, the more peeved I’d become over our interaction earlier in the day, and the things he had said to Lily when I hadn’t been around.

It was probably the alcohol talking, or it would be if Remus was still awake when I got inside. I could feel an argument sizzling on the edge of my tongue – I wanted a fight.

 

Or, maybe, I just wanted another excuse to be that close to him again.

 

My keys finally cooperated with the doorknob, and it happened to be just as I had begun to rest my weight against the door. As it flew open, I tumbled drunkenly into the room, landing with a giant, dead thud onto the carpeted floor beneath me, cursing all the way down.

Carefully, I looked up toward Remus’s bed, wincing at the expression I expected to see on his face. Instead, I saw him, bathed in the silver moonlight coming in from the window beside the small section of the wall he was leaning on. His legs were stretched down his bed, crossed at the ankles, and he had opened a single eye to look at me.

Whatever resentment toward Remus I had been brooding over the last few hours melted away as soon as his gaze was set on me. In the paleness of the light coming through the window behind him, I could just barely see the amber glow of his eyes, and with the way his eyebrow was raised in my direction, there was not a single clean thought left in my head.

“Did I wake you?” I asked needlessly, for lack of anything else to say. It was obvious I hadn’t – he was still wearing the clothes I had seen him in last.

“Does it look like you woke me?” he retorted back quickly and I let out a short breath.

“What are you still doing up?” I asked, peeling myself off of the floor. He watched me carefully as I steadied myself against the bed, as if he couldn’t figure out why I was speaking to him. Truthfully, I should have been more angry at him – I should have been personally offended by the way he had insulted me earlier, by the way he had lumped me into the same, depraved category that my father occupied. And there was still that spark in my chest that was itching for a fight. But seeing the way his eyes lit up in the dark, the way his disheveled hair looked pressed up against the wall – I couldn’t feel anything but an itch for something _other_ than a fight.

“I don’t sleep well during the full moon,” he replied softly, in a surprisingly honest tone, but it was quick to disappear. “But what does it matter to you?” he mumbled, closing his eyes again, and folding his hands over his stomach. I ground my teeth, trying not to spew out the first thing I thought. Which, realistically, was ‘ _Goddammit, Remus, just let me kiss you._ ’

“Jesus, Remus, I’m trying to be civil,” I growled. He actually laughed.

“What a concept, a Black trying to be civil with a commoner like me,” he plastered on an expression of feign surprise, holding a hand over his chest. My heart was racing, and while I was sure it was out of aggression, I couldn’t help but feel a rise in southward pressure.

“Fine,” I hissed. “Enjoy your fucking night, Remus.” As I tried to remove my boots, I heard him mumble something under his breath from his corner of the room.

“Not bloody likely,” he said, as if to himself. I froze. Just then, I didn’t care how adorable Remus was, I didn’t care that the way he was looking at me was causing quite a bit of tightness in the crotch of my trousers. I was done with this. I spun around.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Moony: _ **

 It felt like the last full moon had only been a day ago. And here it was again. I breathed in deeply, crossing my feet at the ankles and settling back against the wall by the window next to my bed. It was going to be my first full moon away from home, and I expected a long night.

The accident that had left me scarred and socially awkward had occurred on the night of a full moon. While I barely remembered the event itself, I certainly remembered the terror, especially that of my parents. If I concentrated enough, I could still feel the fear in my heart, remembering my mother sobbing over my bloodied body, my father racing to call for help.

Every full moon since then, I’d been plagued with nightmares. I can never remember the content – only the panic attacks that come afterward. It’s not just once – not just one nightmare and then it’s morning – it’s constant, throughout the night of the full moon. Every minute of sleep feels like an hour within a state of stricken terror.

So I’ve stopped sleeping during full moons. I’ve trained myself to stay awake, and it’s really not that bad. I’ve gotten used to it. At first, my mum and dad would often take turns staying up with me because, as a child, it was so hard to stay awake all night. The consequences of me accidentally falling asleep would be waking everyone within listening distance to the sounds of horrified screaming. Once, I even bit my dad’s hand when he tried to rouse me.

I was just about to flip on the lamp next to my bed and delve back into Dorian Gray when I heard the jangling of keys and soft cursing from just outside the dormitory door. Sirius was returning from a night of heavy drinking, surely. I could tell by how often he struggled with getting the key – or the right key, even – into the keyhole.

Again, I took another deep breath. It was going to be an even longer night than I had originally anticipated. Mostly, because I had to behave absolutely abhorrent toward my permanent roommate. At this point, not even friendship was an option. I had to make Sirius Black believe that I hated him with every fiber of my being. That was partially true – I _was_ sure I wanted to ring his scrawny neck. I just wasn’t sure what _else_ I wanted to do to his neck.

The moment I had begun to get caught up in imagining just exactly what I would do with my hands around Sirius’s throat, he came stumbling into the room, falling flat onto his face. A string of half-whispered curse words poured from his mouth as he looked up at me.

I’d like to pretend that a single breath didn’t catch in my throat as his silver eyes flickered in the moonlight that was streaming in from the window.

“Did I wake you?” he asked, almost sweetly, his voice soft and deep. The shiver that built in my shoulders couldn’t be stifled, though I did avoid shuddering outwardly.

“Does it look like you woke me?” I argued gruffly, trying to recover some of the anger I had felt toward him earlier in the day. Truthfully, seeing him lying on the floor in front of me, looking up at me through his perfected bedroom eyes, had me completely at his mercy.

“What are you still doing up?” he asked, undeterred by my outburst. His tone wasn’t anything like it had been during our last encounter. It was quiet and kind.

“I don’t sleep well during the full moon,” I answered honestly, unintentionally responding in kind to his demeanor. I had to recover. I had to stop this. “But what does it matter to you?” I mumbled. He clenched his teeth instantly.

“Jesus, Remus, I’m trying to be civil,” he growled, and I tried to ignore the tightening feeling in my abdomen at the sound of his voice in that tone. Instead, I laughed.

“What a concept,” I scoffed. “A Black trying to be civil with a commoner like me.” In feign shock, I dramatically placed my hand over my heart. For a moment, he just stared at me, chest heaving in anger – I wondered if he was about to lunge across the room at me.

“Fine,” he finally conceded with an annoyed hiss as he bent over to remove his boots. As my eyes caught a view of the back of his trousers, I quickly looked away, flushed. “Enjoy your fucking night, Remus.” Suddenly, part of me couldn’t help but feel guilty over the way I had just treated him, while he had been attempting to be courteous. But I didn’t really have a choice.

I sighed, looking back out at the full moon. “Not bloody likely.” Immediately, Sirius stopped – he was completely motionless. Before I could say more, he turned, taking two giant steps over to the edge of my bed. His face was flushed; he was clenching his fists.

“What the hell have I done to piss you off now?” he shouted.

“I’m sure this will come as a shock to you,” I replied in like tone, “but not everything is about you, Sirius!” I found myself to have risen from my reclined position on my bed, pressing my palms into the mattress to lean over the edge, further into Sirius’s face. Even in the frustration of the moment, even knowing that I caused his blood to boil over, I couldn’t prevent myself from noticing the slight taste of menthol on my tongue, as his heated breath fell against my lips.

“Well that’s fucking news to me!” he snapped quickly and whatever nervousness I thought he might’ve felt at our confrontation earlier was entirely removed.

“Maybe if you took your head out of your arse occasionally, you would notice a few things,” I said, with a strained expression. He shook his head, like a bull about to charge. I could practically feel steam radiating from his pores.

“You know what, Remus?” he said, not retreating from his position. “I did notice some things. I noticed that, as soon as you found out my name, you immediately made assumptions about me, when you don’t know me at all!” His volume continued to increase.

“It wasn’t your name that gave me those assumptions, _Black_ ,” I said, and despite my argument of his point, I still spat out his last name. “It was your shit attitude.”

“ _My_ attitude?” he scoffed.

“ _Oh, don’t bother the poor boy, Lily. We can’t possibly be seen in public with a_ freak _like that_ ,” I purposefully mocked our previous conversation and his mouth fell open.

“I never said that,” he argued, his tone dropping significantly. His reaction was proof enough – he may not have spoken the words, but he had definitely thought them.

“Maybe you didn’t say it out loud, but it’s exactly what you think of me,” I huffed, and as he took a step back, I followed, climbing down from the bed to stand in front of him.

Suddenly, the expression on his face changed, and his demeanor was the same as it had been earlier. His Adam’s apple bobbed down the length of his neck as he swallowed hard.

“You really have no idea what _exactly_ I think of you,” he nearly whispered. Unless I was imagining it, he moved slightly back toward me – closer than ever. It was then, in the darkness of our shared room, with only the moonlight to illuminate the way the mercury in his eyes swirled as they focused on my mouth, that I began to wonder if I was alone in my crush.

Doubt came roaring into the forefront of my mind as my eyes traveled over the sharp features of Sirius’s face. Denial aside – if I admitted to myself that I found Sirius Black unequivocally, phenomenally attractive, and that I wanted nothing more than to run my fingers through his hair and my tongue over his lips – in what bizarre universe would he _ever_ reciprocate those feelings toward _me_? He would laugh in my face if he knew that a disfigured, apprehensive hermit like me, who would rather spend a fortune on classic literature than a single pound on a pint, would even dare to fancy a bloke like him.

I intended to carry on the fight – to argue with him until dawn. It was better than staying up all night by myself, anyway. At least his expressions were entertaining. What I intended to say was _‘It can’t be worse than what I think of you,’_ just to rile him up again. Instead, what came out of my mouth was “I’m sure it can’t be worse than what I think of myself.”

His eyes widened a bit – he seemed surprised that I would reveal anything this personal about myself. In fact, so was I. Finally, his lips parted and a small menthol sigh fell from them, as his silver eyes locked onto mine, concern furrowing his dark brows above them.

 

“Moony,” he exhaled softly, his tone argumentative as his fingers brushed against mine.

 

Immediately, I clenched my jaw, snapping my mouth shut. Where had he heard that name? I’d only just heard it in the daydream I’d had earlier. How could he possibly know it?

“What did you just call me?” I asked, feeling rather breathless and slightly manic. His softened eyes widened again, in total panic.

 

The last time, the transition into this _vision_ had been gradual – a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, blurred eyesight, dizzying. This time around, it felt like a snap – in fact, my ears even popped. Before I could call out in surprise, I was in a new place, and it wasn’t the great hall it had been the last time. I was outside. Even more puzzlingly, it was snowing. In the real world, it was very late August – not nearly early enough for snow.

As I glanced around, I noticed I was sitting alone on the crumbling front steps of a decrepit building. The wind howled through the cracks of the tall house, making it sound vaguely as though there was someone screaming from the inside.

I was decidedly more observant than the first time. Then, I had been so confused, I couldn’t recall any small details about where I had been. This time, I took notice of the formation of the trees, the position of the rising sun, the mountains in the distance. But everything was still completely foreign to me. That is, until I heard the door open and close from behind me.

“You alright there, Moony?” I heard a painfully familiar voice ask. As I turned, I couldn’t help but feel relief that Sirius was present in this … whatever it was. As cold as it was, I was surprised – but not necessarily disappointed – to see Sirius in nothing but a thin pair of boxer shorts. It was only then that I realized that _I_ wasn’t wearing any more than he was.

His long, dark hair brushed just above the sharp, deep lines of his collarbones, the muscles of his chest were thinly defined. The boxers he wore hung low on his waist, I wasn’t sure if his gaunt hip bones were helping to keep them up or angling them further down. As he made his way over to me, my face was aligned with his stomach, a delicate trail of dark hair trickling down from his belly button.

Flushed, I turned, finally nodding in response to his question, with a slight, but genuine smile, knowing that I had to keep no pretense with the Sirius in this universe – if anything, I knew _this_ Sirius was at least my friend. I began to wonder if I was constructing these scenarios to allow myself to talk openly with him, to be close to him. An excuse to look at him, unashamed.

He sat down beside me, carefully so, and as soon as I turned to look at him, I felt his hand push up underneath the hair hanging into my face.

“You’ve got a new scar,” he smiled sadly. “I think that one was my fault.” My eyebrows furrowed in confusion at his comment, but as his hand slid down my cheek, I became severely distracted from every other thing around me. It was in that moment that a frighteningly wonderful thought occurred to me. Even as I thought it, I could feel common sense trying to tear the idea from my mind, but it was already so firmly rooted. I had to try it.

Without another internal argument, I leaned forward, slowly, and placed my forehead against Sirius’s. While he seemed surprised, he certainly didn’t back away from me.

“Padfoot,” I whispered, recalling the name that James and Lily had used for him. The movement of my words had propelled my lips forward, they brushed against his, just slightly. It was almost enough to satisfy my curiosity – it was certainly enough to answer some questions, the most important answer being, yes, I _definitely_ fancied blokes. At least this one.

In his response, he let out a single, soft whimper before his hand tightened around my neck – and he pulled me closer to him. A trace of mint and smoke drifted from his mouth into mine and I suddenly, desperately needed that taste on my tongue.

What I expected next was the eager crash of our mouths, mint and smoke from the source, the sensation of Sirius’s tongue sliding along my own. Instead, I was transported back to my dorm room. And Sirius was standing so close to me that I almost leapt forward to press my lips against his – before I remembered that he despised me. Instead, I noticed the aching, stimulated expression on his face. This time, the sinking feeling in my gut came _after_ the dream.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “You know what, Remus?” I barked, pressing further into his space. “I did notice some things. I noticed that, as soon as you found out my name, you immediately made assumptions about me, when you don’t know me at all!” I couldn’t help but shout. How could I possibly be so infuriated by the same person I was so attracted to?

“It wasn’t your name that gave me those assumptions, _Black_.” His point completely contradicted the revulsion with which he spoke my name. “It was your shit attitude.”

“ _My_ attitude?” I practically laughed in his face.

“ _Oh, don’t bother the poor boy, Lily. We can’t possibly be seen in public with_ a freak _like that_ ,” he said in a mocking tone, and I felt my mouth fall open in surprise. Did he really hear it that way? God, I should’ve just let Lily invite him. This was a disaster.

“I never said that,” I replied sheepishly, feeling absolutely guilty. 

“Maybe you didn’t say it out loud, but it’s exactly what you think of me,” he snapped angrily. Not sure what else to do to improve the situation, I stepped back out of his face, trying to make myself appear less intimidating, but he followed, climbing down from his place on his bed and standing directly in front of me. With him so close, and knowing that I was probably presently the cause of his new passion, the energy that I had been spending on my anger suddenly, and quickly, became directed elsewhere. I couldn’t convince myself not to act on it.

“You really have no idea what _exactly_ I think of you,” I replied in a near whisper, allowing myself to shift my weight further toward him. At this proximity, with my eyes fixated on the movement of his lips, I could almost taste the aroma of black tea that lingered on his shallow breath. He didn’t make any indication of moving away – in fact, unless I was mistaken, I was almost sure he had stepped in further. All his aggravation was suddenly dissipated, and his dark eyes softened as they traveled across my face. If I didn’t know better, I would have begun to wonder if he wasn’t feeling the same things I was.

That thought was quickly extinguished by a storm of doubt. Even if he _was_ gay, a well-spoken, well-read bloke like Remus would never be interested in someone like me. After all, I’d seen how he felt about my family – and who could blame him? He was entirely right to judge me based on them. My family was despicable, and did despicable things. Despite my hatred of them, I often wondered how much of them shone through me.

Just as I began to try to tear my gaze away from him, his eyes lowered. “I’m sure it can’t be worse than what I think of myself.” The breath fell from my chest. I had no idea he had such a low opinion of himself. If only I could make him see himself the way I saw him.

“Moony,” I sighed, trying to form the words to tell him how I felt. From where my hands hung at my side, I let my fingers brush lightly against his.

Before I could get another single word out, his eyes widened, mouth clamping closed quickly. For a moment, I was confused – what just happened?

 

He spoke in a breathless tone. “What did you just call me?”

 

Instantly, my chest tightened in sheer panic. I had just called him a nickname that I had only heard in a bizarre daydream. More important than that, it was almost as if he _recognized_ it, like he’d been called that before. How was any of this possible?

I started to try to explain myself – _it was just something I came up with just now, since you said you didn’t sleep well during the full moon, and I have a propensity toward nicknames, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve been on my mind constantly._ But when I let my eyes find his in the darkness, I watched them slowly glaze over – he was looking right at me, but _through_ me, like I was no longer there. Like he was somewhere else entirely.

A startling thought occurred to me – had he been having the same inexplicable visions that I’d been having? Is that what was happening to him? His eyes, though not focused on anything in the room, were scattering around, as if he were observing his surroundings.

“Remus,” I spoke his name softly, grabbing hold of his shoulder, but he didn’t respond, his eyes wandering. I watched them carefully as his pupils suddenly dilated. A quiet smile appeared on his lips and I couldn’t help but stare in awe at how sincere, how warm it was.

Before I could stop myself, I reached up and brushed a lock of stray hair away from his face. As my fingers brushed against his skin, he leaned into my touch, smile still in place. I nearly pulled back in my surprise, but the warmth of his skin, the softness of the scar underneath my fingertips made me stay. I let my hand skim down along the surface of his cheek, slowing to contour the lines of his jaw. Still, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was taking advantage of the situation – Remus didn’t even seem to know where he was, much less what _I_ was doing. Under the guilt, I started to let my hand slip away from his skin, just as his lips parted to speak.

 

“Padfoot,” he barely whispered, in a devastatingly tender tone.

 

A startled breath caught in my throat, my hand frozen in the air, curled just underneath his chin. My mind was racing with trying to remind myself that he wasn’t speaking directly to me, that he was caught in some sort of twisted reality. Wait – did that mean his waking fantasies were much the same as mine? Was _I_ the subject of _his_ vision?

Before I could act on any impulses, the brightness returned to Remus’s eyes and they suddenly focused on me, wide and confused and frantic. I didn’t even want to know what it was he saw in my expression, because I was sure it was absolute lust. As his eyes flittered down to my lips, and he bit down hard onto his own, I couldn’t stop myself.

“Moony,” I repeated, the hand that was perched under his chin moving forward just enough to brush along his neck. For a moment, his eyes fluttered closed, but as my fingers began to drive further toward the back of his neck, he pulled away.

“Where did you hear that name?” he asked suddenly, his affectionate demeanor reverting back to defense and cynicism. It felt like my heart fell into my knees.

“I didn’t,” I lied, not sure why I couldn’t just tell him the truth, but knowing that his change in attitude meant that he didn’t want me this close, physically or emotionally.

“Where did it come from?” he questioned again, more emphatically. With a heavy sigh, I rolled my fingers over my face. Fuck, I had been so _close_.

“I made it up, Remus. You said you didn’t sleep during full moons, and I just made it up on the spot,” I rambled, having absolutely no idea what to say to get him to calm down. I definitely couldn’t tell him I’d heard him say it in a vision in which he was crawling into bed with me. That would open up a whole new batch of problems. Based on his reactions upon coming out of whatever trance he had been under, I was sure he didn’t want from me what I wanted from him – even if he did seem to have some impulse toward it, subconsciously. I wasn’t completely sure he even remembered the vision, much less that he had said my name out loud during it. But, _fuck me,_ I would do almost anything to hear him say my name like that again.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 What the hell had I done while in that stupid dream? Sirius’s eyes were all over me, his hand suspended gently underneath my chin, his chest heaving impatiently. Had I actually acted out in real time what I had been doing in the dream? _God dammit._

Despite the mental reprimand I was giving myself, I still couldn’t help letting my eyes drift down toward Sirius’s mouth – the lips that I achingly needed a taste of – and I bit down hard onto my own lips to keep them in check. Of course, Sirius didn’t fail to notice any of it, and his raised hand pressed forward, grazing against the side of my neck.

My breathing hitched in surprise at his reaction – had I been right, after all? Sirius Black was actually attracted to _me_? He had to be – the look on his face said it all.

“Moony,” he said, his tone stirred by the anxiousness of his breath, and my first response was to let my eyes drift closed, reveling in the erogenous sound of his voice, his hand on my skin, his lips centimeters away from my own.

No, I couldn’t get this deeply involved with Sirius. I wasn’t even sure I could get this involved with a bloke, at all. There were too many variables – I already had to deal with the bullying over my scars, did I really want to add _poofter_ to the list of things people used to torment me over? Not to mention, even if Sirius wasn’t as bad as I originally thought – which it certainly seemed like he wasn’t – I was absolutely positive that the rest of his family was. I wasn’t ready to deal with that new form of hell. My parents might both have simultaneous heart attacks if they found out that I was romantically involved with the person I shared a room with, especially if they found out that person was Sirius Black.

More importantly than any of that, I had to find out how he knew the name Moony – how he knew the name that he himself had called me, in what seemed like another lifetime. Maybe even more, I wanted to find out why this name ignited such a fervor in my chest every time I heard him say it. Hearing him use my actual name didn’t have nearly the same effect.

“Where did you hear that name?” I asked, using every ounce of energy I had to pull away from the touch of my roommate. As soon as his hand was removed from my skin, I regretted it.

“I didn’t,” he said quickly, shifting his gaze away from mine. He was lying.

“Where did it come from?” I reformed the question, asking more insistently.

“I made it up, Remus,” he snapped suddenly. “You said you didn’t sleep during full moons, and I just made it up on the spot.” He was keeping himself far removed from me, and it felt like whatever spell the two of us were previously under had been shattered.

“Fine, whatever,” I conceded, though I could tell he was keeping something from me.

“What just happened, Remus?” he asked, his voice suddenly dropped in volume as he finally allowed his eyes to meet mine again. Within them was a dark grey cloud of doubt.

I wanted to tell him exactly what it was that I had seen. I wanted to tell him that I had been having standing dreams about him, because I couldn’t stop fantasizing about what the taste of his lips would be like. I wanted to tell him I had just tried to find out for myself. That I still wanted to find out.

“Nothing,” I replied bitterly. “Just a full moon.” With pursed lips, I grabbed my copy of Dorian Gray and a sweater and went storming out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Amortentia: _ **

 That was it, then. I had tried to get him to open back up, and he shut me down. Whatever his dream had been about, it couldn’t have been about me. And with all that happened right after he’d come out of it, he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know how I felt about him. I’d had my hand on his neck, for Christ’s sake – it was obvious what my intentions were.

There were very few things I could assume about his reaction. The first explanation was that Remus was not gay – everything that just happened was a result of his coming out of whatever daze he had been under, and I had taken complete advantage of him. In my mind, that was the most plausible theory. Though, I suppose my second premise could also be true – that he _was_ attracted to me, but he wasn’t willing to admit it to himself yet. Based on his reaction the first time we had a close encounter, that might actually be the truth.

At that point, it didn’t matter. Remus obviously wanted nothing to do with me. But there was one thing that was still bothering me. When I called him Moony. The sound of that name, for whatever reason, seemed to ignite something in him. I was sure he knew it from somewhere, based on the way he responded to me when I said it. The last time I’d said it, he practically melted into my hands. Similar to the way I had reacted when he called me Padfoot.

A long string of curse words erupted from my lips when I thought back on it, imagining my name on his lips in the breathy tone he’d used to speak it. Suddenly, I realized that I was uncomfortably erect under the zipper of my trousers. With a groan, I wondered if that was why Remus had retreated so quickly. If he wasn’t gay, or was still mulling it over, I certainly hadn’t helped the situation by giving him an eyeful of just how easily he managed to turn me on.

Knowing that I had screwed up enough to where my roommate wasn’t likely to return any time soon, I hastily unfastened everything and pulled my trousers down my hips. As soon as my fingers wrapped around my shaft, a moan instantly escaped my lips. This whole day had been the most sexually frustrating day of my life – the last hour in particular.

As I pumped hard back and forth, I sank to my knees, practically falling underneath the tall dorm room bed frame. Remus’s voice was on repeat in my head – I replayed the moment he spoke my name _. ‘Padfoot,’_ he had said, the pitch of his voice deeper than it had ever been, injected with a heavy breath. It was how I imagined he would say it with his cock in my mouth.

“God, fuck,” I moaned at the idea of sucking Remus off, the grip of my hand tightening as I bit down hard onto the mattress in front of me. I only had to remember the dream I’d had in which a half-naked Remus was crawling into bed with me – his long fingers brushing closely to the waist of my boxers, his unusually warm breath falling against my bare chest – and I was gone. Never in my life had I come so quickly, or so gratefully. Damn Remus Lupin to hell.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Once I escaped from the dorm room, I let out an elongated, tortured sigh. He was in my grasp. He had his hand on my throat, his eyes were begging me to let him kiss me. And I had run away from him. What the fuck was I thinking?

I had nowhere to go. Everything I owned was in that room. With Sirius. I couldn’t go back, I would probably snog him to death if I got within ten feet of him, now. Until this episode of _hunger_ was over, I had to keep my distance from Sirius. He would ruin my life, if I let him.

My body ached all over, with one region pulsing particularly heavy. Whatever doubt I’d had about being attracted to Sirius suddenly seemed laughable. All he had to do was speak my name – and not even my name, just a name that I had heard only him call me in a fictional universe. Why was that name so important to me? Even more so, why was the sound of that name in Sirius’s voice so stimulating? The answer was in the question – it was Sirius’s voice.

 Just the _thought_ of his voice sent an instant arch into my spine. _“Moony,”_ he had said with his anxious fingers next to my neck, the breathiness of his voice practically formed into a desperate moan. Remembering it only worsened my already obvious erection.

With an exasperated groan, I leaned against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, burying my face into the crook of my arm, keeping the sweater I’d brought along over the growing tent between my legs. All I could hear was “ _Moony. Moony. Moony,”_ in Sirius’s voice, growing in pitch and frequency and breathiness, and I was left to imagine that would be what his voice would sound like if I had him pushed up against a wall with my hand between his legs.

“Oh my fucking God,” I moaned loudly, rubbing the sweater against myself in an unsuccessful attempt to relieve some of the tension at my crotch. It only made it worse.

“Remus?” I heard to my right and I turned quickly, a panicked expression on my face as I held the sweater – and my book – over the currently indecent region of my body. Peter stood there, a perplexed expression on his face, but the smile still remained.

 

“Thanks for letting me stay, Pete,” I sighed in relief as he opened the door to his dorm room. I still kept a tight grip on the items in my hands. Sirius wasn’t out of my mind yet.

“No trouble, Rem. My roommate hasn’t even gotten here yet. I don’t imagine he’ll be coming round in the middle of the night, either,” Peter laughed, his nose wrinkling.

“Your roommate is a real life saver by being late,” I chuckled, leaning up against the empty bed. Peter threw one of his extra pillows onto the mattress.

“So what exactly happened between you and Sirius?” he asked, and my first instinct was to blush, pulling my sweater closer to my abdomen.

“I just can’t stand the bloke, you know?” I generalized, not really knowing how to explain how _‘I’m incredibly aroused by him’_ to someone I’ve just met. Not to mention, I didn’t want _anyone_ to know how I felt about Sirius. “He’s arrogant, and obnoxious, and he’s got this piss-poor attitude toward anyone who isn’t minted.” Pete just nodded in silent agreement.

“Okay,” he said, drawing out the vowels. “But, _something_ happened, yeah?” I let out a short sigh. Jesus, Peter was good at reading situations.

“Well, yeah. I mean, sort of,” I rambled. “He came back totally pissed, and we fought again about the same dumb shit as before, but he was acting completely barmy.”

“Barmy, how?” Peter asked.

“More than once, he called me Moony,” I said, tightening the grip on my sweater, and straining to keep my pathetic, lascivious whimper to myself. 

“Moony? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “He said he made it up, because I mentioned that I don’t sleep well during the full moon.”

“Alright,” Pete said, sticking out his bottom lip. “What’s wrong with a nickname?”

“Why would he give me a nickname? I don’t even know him. And he’s … the way he says it is just …” I clamped my mouth shut, realizing I was becoming overly flushed. 

“Have you tried requesting a change?” he wondered suddenly. For a single moment, I panicked at the idea that I may never see Sirius again. God, I had it so bad.

“You can do that?” I asked, trying to appear interested in the idea. Pete smiled curiously.

“From what I’ve heard. But you don’t want to do that, do you?” he asked and I choked.

“What? Yes, I do. Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, working hard to appear insulted. How could this kid, who didn’t even know me, see the one thing I was trying hardest to hide?

“I’m just going to ask, please don’t be offended,” Peter said, holding his hands out in front of him, as if in defense. “Do you fancy Sirius Black?”

“What? No … no, why would you …” I stammered nervously.

“Remus,” he said softly, placing a hand on my forearm. I hung my head in defeat.

“Maybe. I don’t know,” I sighed deeply, placing my face into my hands. Pete made sure not to remove his hand from my arm – instead, he patted his fingers gently onto my sleeve.

“What’s so bad about that?” he asked, nothing but sincerity in his tone.

“He’s a _bloke_ , Pete,” I said with extreme emphasis, trying to indicate that I had never fancied a boy before.  When Peter pulled his hand from my arm, I looked up from between my fingers, but he just continued to smile at me.

“So what?” he grinned. I just stared blankly at him. How could he be so supportive of me? Being gay – or whatever it is that I was – was not exactly smiled upon. But the way Pete took it all in stride made me feel like it wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be.

“And he’s a Black,” I added. Finally, I saw a slight drop in Peter’s smile.

“Well, do you think he feels the same?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.

“No!” I practically shouted. He rose an eyebrow at me. “We obviously haven’t had a discussion over it, but, no. I mean, you just have to _look_ at him to know.” I sighed heavily. “Even if he was gay, he could get any bloke he wanted. And it wouldn’t be me.” In the back of my mind, I thought of the way he had called me Moony, how it had genuinely seemed like he was about to kiss me. But I dismissed it. He had been drunk, after all. It could have been anyone there with him, and he probably would have acted the same.  

Peter narrowed his eyes at me. “I think you sell yourself short, Remus.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a sigh as I ran my fingers through my hair. “I’m not even sure it’s not just frustration being directed at him. I’m certainly not going to act on it.”

“You might regret not acting on it,” he argued, but a yawn followed quickly after. With a smile, I leaned over to pat him on the shoulder. His smile reappeared instantly.

“It’s late, Pete. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“What about you? You just said you don’t sleep well during a full moon,” he said, but his yawning continued. I just smiled and shook my head.

“I’ll be fine. I’m used to it. But could I maybe use your shower?”

“Of course,” he smiled, pointing behind me. “It’s through that – well, you know, it’s the same layout as your dorm,” he laughed as he kicked off his shoes.

“Thanks,” I smiled as I shut the door behind me. For a moment, I just leaned up against the closed door, taking a deep breath. I was trusting Peter with a lot. For some reason, it came easily to me – like I’d been friends with him for half my life.

After I turned on the water, I undressed, realizing my very stiff problem had barely declined in intensity since the hallway. As I stepped under the noise of the water falling in the shower, my hand drifted eagerly southward, and I let out a tiny whimper at my own touch. I could pretend I wasn’t imagining what it would be like if it were Sirius’s touch, but what was the point in delaying the truth? Honestly, if I thought enough about Sirius – about the interaction we’d just had, the way he said my name, the way his eyes glowed in the moonlight – this was going to be an awfully short shower. If anything, maybe I could get it out of my system.

If that was what it took, then I gladly indulged myself. It didn’t take much to remember the heat of the moment – even that of the dream. Maybe especially the dream – his abdomen had been so close to my face, I really could’ve just pushed him against the balusters of the porch and pulled him into my throat. God, that was why I was so turned on by the sound of his voice when he said my name – because I imagined him saying it, with his fingers twisted roughly in my hair, as I dragged my teeth along the length of his cock.

I moaned as quietly as I possibly could, but the idea of giving Sirius Black a blowjob was too overwhelming to remain quiet. Even worse – I had to bite my fist as soon as I thought it – was imaging Sirius being the one giving _me_ head. My breathing immediately sped up, the grip of my fingers tightened and quickened as I envisioned him tying his long, black hair up at the top of his head with the same look he had been giving me only moments ago. Raised dark eyebrows as he kissed his way down my chest and stomach, his soft, pink lips hovering over the tip.

“Fuck,” I mumbled a little too loudly, my teeth nearly breaking the skin of my hand as I came to the fantasy of Sirius’s lips kissing softly onto the head of my cock. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I groaned, the muscles of my lower abdomen suddenly sore. With shallow breaths, I leaned against the wall of the shower for a moment, grateful that I was able to get a release so quickly, but exhausted from the weight of how hard I had come.

Resting there under the warm water, I realized how naïve I had been to think that a single wank could get Sirius Black out of my mind. If anything, I was almost ready to go again. If I imagined the sound of his voice, or my lips on his neck, or his lips, in general – _fuck_.

After I was cooled down and dressed, I made my way sheepishly from the bathroom, desperately hoping that Peter didn’t have to bear auditory witness to any of what just happened. Luckily for me, he had been totally knackered, and was already snoring softly. I let out a short sigh of relief as I climbed into bed and opened Dorian Gray by the moonlight.

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 There was no hope of me getting any sleep. It was utterly pointless to even try. Once I had allowed myself to wonder what Remus was doing, where he was, whether he was thinking of me, as I was him – well, the not knowing was enough to drive me mad.

For a while, I paced around in the dorm, wondering if he was just out having a walk, but several hours passed, and no Remus. I tried to convince myself I didn’t know him well enough to be worried. But I was still slightly fretted over it all.

The biggest worry on my mind was that I drove him off – that he caught a glimpse of my raging hard-on and flipped the fuck out and ran screaming in terror. God, if I wasn’t enormously gay and I had given my male roommate a boner just by speaking to him, I’d run, too.

And therein lied the problem. I had no idea whether Remus was gay or not. Every time I thought I had him figured out, he completely changed course. Earlier, I had been sure when he’d said _‘Padfoot’_ in that rasping tone, that he was undoubtedly smitten with me. Evidently, it had been nothing more than an ill-timed side effect of the trance-like state he’d been under.

Finally, I talked myself into trying to get some sleep. It would be pointless to go out and try to find Remus – it may even make things worse. All of his things were in this room, he would have to come back eventually, and when he did, I would apologize. Maybe we could just pretend like none of this had ever happened. Even as I thought it, I groaned in frustration.

At some point in my tossing and turning and failed attempts at counting sheep, I did fall asleep, hoping not to dream. They did nothing but worsen my futile crush on Remus Lupin. 

 

“Mr. Black?” I heard as my eyes snapped open. In confusion, I glanced around to discover I was standing in what resembled a classroom, but not at my university. The room was old, made of stone walls, like a Medieval castle. It was more like a science laboratory than a classroom – groups of kids were standing around tables that were topped with burners, but they were lit underneath something more reminiscent of a cauldron than a flask. Along the walls, there were preserved specimens in jars, but of the most bizarre looking creatures I’d ever seen.

As I looked to my left, I was relieved to see James, but he was staring at me wide-eyed, like I had done some outlandish thing. A glance to my right, and Lily was doing the same.

“Mr. Black!” the stern voice repeated more insistently and my head snapped forward. Standing across the table in front of me was an older man with wiry grey hair, dressed in a brown tartan suit with a mismatched bowtie. His pale blue eyes were looking expectantly at me.

“Yes sir!” I shouted in surprise. Stifled laughter erupted around me. The man looked none too pleased at my reaction, and narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.

“Pay attention, please,” he reprimanded softly with a clear of his throat as he returned to the front of the class. With a sigh, my shoulders slumped forward. As soon as what I assumed to be the professor turned his back, James leaned over toward me.

“Maybe next time, don’t moan the name of your best friend in the middle of class,” he advised with pursed lips. I stared at him, panic-stricken.

“Please tell me I didn’t,” I balked in disbelief. He nodded solemnly.

“Luckily, Moony wasn’t paying any attention to you,” he said, pulling back quickly as the tartan-clad man turned back to the class. _Moony,_ I repeated, glancing around furtively, trying to find Remus in the dimly-lit room.

My eyes fell on the back of his head – I knew his sandy brown hair anywhere. James was right, he wasn’t paying attention to me at all. His nose was buried in the notebook in front of him, a quill pen moving quickly across the page as he scribbled down notes.

I leaned back over to James. “Why isn’t he partnered with us?” From what James had just said – and from what I could gather from the last dream – Remus and I were best friends. Which most likely meant that Remus and James were also best friends. James looked at me strangely.

“After the stunt you pulled? I’ll be surprised if he ever speaks to you again,” James replied, his voice thick with regret. “You’re lucky _I_ still speak to you.” For a moment, I just blinked at him in surprise, throat tight with apprehension. What _exactly_ had I done?  

“What can I do to make it up to him?” I asked, wondering how I was going to get him to tell me what I was that I had done. Ultimately, I guess it didn’t matter – this wasn’t happening in real time, anyway. But, then why did it make my chest ache so much?

James sighed softly, looking over at me with a pained expression. “I’m not sure you can this time, Pads.” The pain in my chest intensified tenfold – enough to jolt me out of the vision, and out of my sleep. Once I finally realized I was back in my dorm room, it took me several minutes of deep breathing to calm my pounding heart. It was almost as if my body could remember what horrible thing I’d done to Remus, even if my mind couldn’t – evidenced by the tears streaming down my cheeks. Whatever it was, it had caused even James to question me.

My head fell back onto my pillow as I dragged my hands down my cheeks, dampened in a cold sweat. One last, long, drawing breath on the cold air of my room and the thumping in my chest subsided, slightly, but the pain remained. The only recognizable emotion I could name was guilt. Guilt over something I hadn’t even really done. But it was overwhelming, crippling. It clawed at the interior of my ribs, peeled away at the muscles that allowed me to breathe, like a consuming plague. Vision or not – _real_ or not – what was it that I had done?

I had to go back – I had to get back to this place. I had to know what awful, dreadful thing I had done to Remus – and why. If nothing else, I wanted to apologize to the other Remus, as the Sirius that he knew. Even if it was only a dream. Even if none of it was real.

Closing my eyes tightly, I thought hard about the room I had just been in, trying – praying, even – to get back to where I had just been. To get back to Remus. I was almost shocked when it actually worked. It was in the exact moment I had left off.

“Mr. Lupin,” the professor called at the front of the room. Remus’s head shot up, and from what I could see from his expression, he seemed entirely panicked.

“Yes, Professor Slughorn?” He nearly winced as he spoke.

“Come up here, my boy,” he said, waving his hand as Remus rose reluctantly. “Today, I’ll be teaching you the basics of the very difficult and very powerful Amortentia potion.”

The reactions around the room were divided – some of the boys were high-fiving, some of the girls were waggling their eyebrows at each other. The other half was either groaning in disgust or looking absolutely petrified.

“What exactly is Amortentia?” I asked Lily. Surprisingly, she blushed.

“Love potion, Black. Pay attention,” she muttered, only glancing nervously at James for a moment before turning away completely. My eyes shot back toward Remus. For one single moment, his eyes met mine, but as soon as he was aware of my gaze, he reverted his. My heart was drumming so loudly in my ears that I couldn’t hear any of what was being said. There must have been a bloody mad expression on my face, because James elbowed me hard in the ribs.

“One of the features of Amortentia, other than its mother-of-pearl appearance, is the way it smells differently to everyone who breathes it in,” the professor stated. “It takes an aroma that reminds the person of the things they find the most appealing.” While Remus’s eyes were drawn to the floor, I was sure that I could see them widening, underneath his furrowed brows.

“Whaddya smell, Moony?” I heard a shout from behind me and spun to look into the face of the blonde boy that I had seen Remus with the day before – in the real world.

“Pete,” James hissed through his teeth, his voice dripping with anxiety. The boy named Pete looked confused, but shut his mouth all the same. When I turned, Remus’s eyes were resolutely fixed on me. The muscles in his neck contracted as he swallowed.

“Dark chocolate. Breakfast tea. Old parchment. And …” His eyes never wavered, but as he opened his mouth to say one last thing, he snapped it shut, looking away. “That’s it.”

It felt like a black hole had been ripped open inside my chest, and I couldn’t understand why. Had I expected him to say that some aroma that reminded him of me arose from that cauldron? The fragrance of my expensive shampoo? The smoke usually found trickling from my lips? Based on the way he had been looking at me right before he spoke, I had been sure he was about to admit something terribly incriminating. But why? I wasn’t even sure Remus tolerated me, much less anything else.

The professor called Slughorn dismissed the class and everyone scurried from the room, a few stopping at the cauldron to get a good whiff. Even Lily hurried off, while James looked longingly after her. He lingered next to me for a moment before I assured him I would be alright without him, after which he raced to catch up to Lily.

Eventually, it was just the two of us left. I wasn’t even completely sure that he knew I was still in the room. With a shaking breath, I spoke his name.

“Remus,” I said, as softly and as apologetically as I could.

“You know, I might could’ve forgiven you for what you did to Severus,” he replied, not looking back at me, his voice trembling. I wondered if this was the first time we were speaking after what had evidently happened. “But not for what you did last night.”

My breath caught in my throat. What _else_ had I done? “Moony, I …”

He interrupted immediately, finally turning to face me. “You _don’t_ get to call me that anymore.” His eyes were dull red from holding back tears.

“Remus, please,” I tried to argue, stepping toward him, but he retracted.

“No.”

“I love you,” I blurted out, more to my surprise than to Remus’s.

“Stop saying that!” he shouted, and I flinched. His head fell as he let out a short breath. “I don’t even think you know what love is, Sirius.”

This time, I woke slowly – fading from the dream as if waking up was actually falling asleep. All these visions had begun making it hard for me to tell either way.

Light was coming in through the windows. It was morning already. While my back was turned to the room, and I faced the wall adjacent to my bed, I could tell that Remus still wasn’t back. I didn’t hear anything behind me – not quiet footsteps, or soft breathing, or a morning yawn. Surprisingly, I was grateful. I needed time to figure out what I had just dreamt.

 

I had told him I loved him. Even more frightening?

 

I had meant it.

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**_ Please Wake Up: _ **

 It wasn’t hard for me to stay awake all night during full moons anymore. The hard part was finding something to entertain me for the eight hours in which the rest of the world was fast asleep. Well, that and trying to stay awake during the next day, but I had mastered the art of knowing the perfect moment to steal an opportune nap.

This need to fill the time was usually satiated by classic literature. But even Dorian Gray couldn’t keep my mind away from Sirius Black. In fact, I hardly even had time enough to open the damn book before I felt the recently familiar sensation of falling into the dream-like state in which Sirius Black was evidently one of my best mates.

“Pads, you alright, mate?” I heard as I felt the jolt of falling into someone else’s life. As I looked around the room I found myself in, I was surprised at how ornate everything was. It was a bedroom, but one out of a medieval romance novel – everything was colored in deep shades of burgundy and rich gold. It reminded me of the colors I saw in the first vision I’d had, at the giant table in the great room. There were four different four-poster canopy beds, all bathed in the same colors. One had the curtains drawn, but Peter’s face was poking through. James Potter leaned against a post of the next bed, his face contorted in concern. As I followed his gaze toward the bed right next to the one I was sitting in, I saw Sirius. He was sitting with his legs crossed in the center of his bed, all curtains tied back. In his trembling hands, he held a single piece of paper, and his long, dark hair flowed down around his face, hiding his expression.

At James’s inquiry, he looked up with an obviously strained smile. “Of course,” he grinned, rising to his knees and drawing the curtains around him. “Night, boys.”

James looked over at me, lips pursed to one side. “Night, Sirius,” he replied solemnly as he climbed into his own bed, but leaving his curtains open. For a moment, I remained still, sitting on the edge of my bed, looking intently at the drawn curtains keeping me from Sirius. Something was wrong. James wasn’t pressing it – he probably already knew what it was, as he was closer to Sirius than I was – but I wasn’t about to let Sirius go to bed _that_ miserable.

Before I could become nervous about seeing Sirius for the first time since I tried to snog him senseless, I pushed myself from my bed and flung back the curtains of his bed.

 

He sat in the same position – legs crossed – his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

 

“Oh, God, Sirius,” I breathed out in surprise, immediately climbing into his bed and pulling the sobbing boy into my arms. His fingers clenched around the fabric of my shirt as soon as I was in range, he pressed his tear-streaked face into my shoulder. “What happened?”

“A letter,” he replied, his voice muffled with sobs. “From my _parents_.” The disdain in his voice as he spoke that word inexplicably sent a rush of seething blood into my brain. Without knowing how, I already knew what was in that letter, and it infuriated me to my core.

“Don’t let them …” I began to say, but Sirius interrupted, pulling back to look at me.

“She blasted my name off the wall,” he said quickly. “My mother did. My father refuses to speak to me.” He sobered up for a moment. “And Regulus,” he tried to continue, but his face crumpled into an expression so painful I couldn’t describe it, as the tears began anew. I held him again, placing my hand against the back of his head, running it through his hair.

“I am so sorry, Pads,” I whispered. “Your brother is young, he doesn’t understand.” The ends of my words trailed off as I began to realize I hadn’t consciously known the name of Sirius’s brother. In fact, I hadn’t known Sirius had even had a brother. Maybe it was just common sense that the name he had given in relation to home was a sibling.

“He said he’d rather I’d’ve died than be in Gryffindor and be in lo-...” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “Be _friends_ with a half-breed Muggle.” As he paused, I wracked my brain trying to figure out where I knew those words from – foreign words, but somehow familiar, though I couldn’t directly define them. Like everything about these dreams.

Still, whatever _‘Muggle’_ meant, I knew he was talking about me. “The Blacks can all piss off,” I muttered, and I heard a short, stifled laugh in response. “ _We’re_ here now. Me and James and Peter. You don’t need them anymore. And I’m sure Regulus only repeats what he hears. He doesn’t mean it.” Sirius pulled away to look at me, the tears hanging along the brinks of his eyelids magnifying the shimmering silver color of his eyes. I hastily restrained a sigh.

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Moony,” he said, his lower lip trembling as tears continued to spill over his flushed cheeks.

“Shh,” I told him, guiding him back to my chest with my hand at the back of his head, stroking through his tangled hair. “I’m not going anywhere.” He let out a contented sigh. The longer I brushed my fingers through his hair, the heavier his weight pushed against me, until we were lying down, his head resting on top of my chest.

In his exhaustion, he whispered blearily. “I love you, Moony.” And maybe I was exhausted, too, from the full moon. Maybe I was just caught up in this alternate universe. Maybe I didn’t want him to feel completely alone in the world.

 

“I love you, Padfoot,” I replied softly, pressing my lips into his hair.

 

Maybe I meant it.

 

When I came out of it, still in Pete’s dorm, it was already morning. The sun was starting to peek through the window blinds. It was almost as if I’d slept – I felt oddly refreshed, which was unusual for a full moon. Sirius _had_ entertained me through the night, after all.

Peter was still properly knocked out. With a short laugh, I scribbled down a hurried _‘thank you’_ note and taped it to his forehead. He didn’t even flinch.

As I walked back down to the dorm I shared with Sirius, I began to rethink my strategy with him. I couldn’t keep pretending that I hated Sirius Black. From what I had admitted to him in my dream, it was quite the opposite. That thought alone made me laugh out loud – I _wasn’t_ in love with Sirius Black. I’d only known him less than twenty-four hours, it was impossible. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t at least try to like him.

Once I reached my dorm, I stood in front of the door for a moment, breathing deeply. Whatever was going on in my head, I had to dissociate it from the Sirius Black in the real world. I wasn’t in love with him, he wasn’t my best friend, I didn’t want to snog his face off. Telling myself these things didn’t necessarily make them any easier for me to believe.

After opening the door as carefully as I could, I tiptoed into the room, seeing that Sirius was still asleep, turned toward the wall against which his bed sat. At first, I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe I could get some things and get out before he woke, avoid any unnecessary, awkward situations. Just as I reached my bed, I heard Sirius muttering in his sleep. Quietly, I crept closer to his bed to try to make out what he was saying.

“Moony, I …” he said, a pleading tone in his voice, but he stopped abruptly. My eyebrows furrowed as I leaned over his shoulder, just enough to see his expression. He continued. “Remus, please,” the pleading in his voice intensified, his jaw was clenched tightly, tears formed at the border of his closed eyelids. I had to step back – I wasn’t quite sure why, but the expression I saw on his face was causing me actual, physical pain.

“Sirius,” I whispered instinctively, reaching out to him.

“I love you,” he uttered suddenly, and my hand froze just before I could touch his shoulder. His voice sounded absolutely broken – as if the Remus he was speaking to was tearing his heart out of his chest. I swallowed hard, tears threatening from the sound of his devastation. It couldn’t be coincidence that we both dreamed of speaking those words to each other. But why did he look so miserable saying it to me, when I had said it to him so effortlessly?

“Please wake up,” I begged, finally putting my hand on his bare skin.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “Please wake up,” I suddenly heard from behind me, a soft touch against my shoulder. In surprise, I recoiled, before I realized that it was Remus’s voice I heard, Remus’s gentle push against my skin. Slowly, I turned – he didn’t retract his hand – and when my gaze fell into his, my eyes widened at the tears I found in his.

“Did I … say anything?” I asked cautiously. Remus looked at me like a cornered animal, trying to decide whether to escape or attack. I was sure he had heard what I’d said.

“Just nonsense,” he replied, averting his eyes to the floor and letting his hand slip. But I wasn’t ready to let it go. The pain in my chest over potentially losing him was still burning. I reached out and took his hand into mine before it could fall. His eyes rose to mine again.

“Are you sure? I feel like it was something important.” I could outright tell him, right there – that I had dreamed of being in love with him, in a world where he didn’t love me back – and that the thought of it was enough to ruin me. He smiled slightly, and the ruin disappeared.

“It might be,” he replied softly, a mysterious gleam in his eyes. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Suddenly, _confident Sirius_ came roaring back into my body from whatever hole he had dug himself into. “My _God_ , Remus, does this mean you and I are _friends_ now?”

 

The sly smile that was on his face was the most goddamn adorable thing I’d ever seen.

 

“Have you gone mental, Black? I could never be friends with a nutter like you,” he grinned, using the grip he had on my hand to push me away from him. I rose my eyebrows, keeping his fingers intertwined into my own for a moment.

“ _More_ than friends, then? Remus, I had no idea you had it so bad for me,” I teased in a sensual voice, pulling him back toward me. The blush that arose on his freckled cheeks was the reddest I’d ever seen – it only spurred me to pull him in further, closer.

“No, I didn’t … that’s not what I …” He tried stammering through an explanation, but I noticed he was only half-trying to get out of my grasp. Until he noticed the wily grin on my face.

“Tongue tied?” I asked, raising a single brow. He narrowed his eyes at me, but there was a roguish curve to his soft, incredibly close lips.

“Quite interested in my tongue, Sirius?” he whispered, pulling our interlocked hands up to those lips and biting softly onto the knuckle of my first finger, purposefully letting his bottom lip drag along the length of my finger. My mouth fell open, and I forgot how to speak.

“Yes,” was all I could manage to breath out. His eyes found mine, and, for a moment, it was like waiting for an unpinned grenade to go off. Neither of us moved, save for the scouring of our eyes over one another’s faces. Just as I thought he was leaning in, he grinned strangely. 

“Don’t dish out what you can’t take,” he hummed, letting his fingers slip through mine as he walked back to his side of the room. I laid stunned.

“You’re going to pay for that, you know,” I finally managed to say, though my voice had gone completely croaky, probably from the lack of oxygen in my lungs.

“Oh, I’m sure,” he mumbled, but the smile hadn’t left his face.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ The Charade of Platonic Friendship: _ **

It had been nearly a week since Sirius had threatened to pay me back, and I was really not sure what that meant. The not knowing was causing me a great deal of stress, actually.

Oh, it wasn’t like I was afraid of what he would do to me – I was afraid of what he would insinuate doing without actually doing it, and I would be the one to break the stalemate.

Basically, the extent of our relationship over the last several days was pure lasciviousness hiding behind the guise of heterosexual friendship. We teased each other with the promise of what we would do, in an attempt to break the other. While neither of us had actually acted on anything major, straight males didn’t act like this with their friends. Example? His tongue was in my ear yesterday. That one was rough for me – I nearly gave in and put my tongue in his mouth.

Despite all of this lewd behavior, I still wasn’t sure it wasn’t anything more than a game to Sirius. It _was_ possible the whole thing was some sort of elaborate prank to out me to the whole school, as ridiculous as that sounded. There _was_ that boy at secondary school who propositioned me to suck his dick just so he could tell the girl I liked that I was gay. Obviously, that hadn’t worked, but that kid hadn’t been Sirius Black. If I was sure of Sirius’s intentions, if I was sure he was attracted to me in return, I’d be on my knees in an instant.

Sirius never did anything blatant in front of his friends – who were also, somehow, now my friends. Plus, Pete. All five of us went out for drinks after our first day of classes. Sharing at least one class with my _friends_ was nothing short of a dream come true.

However, that class – introductory drama – was also somewhat of a nightmare. Mostly because Sirius Black was a fucking drama queen, and he loved the attention. He also loved getting away with things under the pretext of ‘acting’. Meaning, he could request a volunteer for a scene, and this volunteer was usually me, and the scene usually had filthy subtext.

Case in point: He forced me to volunteer for a scene of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends are discussing their lovers. Sirius looked me dead in the eyes as he delivered a line about how much his character loved his relationship because his lover had ‘no teeth to bite.’ Even worse, he tried to get the professor to allow a scene from something called “The Romance of Lust.” Thank God, that idea was declined, because when I tried to look it up after class was dismissed, I discovered it had been banned from the library for its graphic nature.

Still, I wondered where it would all go. Obviously, I couldn’t date Sirius. Homosexuality was all but a crime. Not to mention how badly I didn’t want to be involved with his family. Besides, even if Sirius was 100% attracted to me, I knew he hid it from James and Lily, so I had to assume that he was embarrassed by the entire notion, for one reason or another.

A more important puzzle to solve was the waking dreams I constantly had that often revolved around Sirius. Over the last several days, I’d had a total of seven. They ranged from the first time I met Sirius to him crawling into bed with me, which sounds much more scandalous than it really was. It had something to do with some type of transformation I’d gone through.

The dreams made me wonder how much was actually in my head. The Sirius in my dreams was identical to the real Sirius – in more ways than one. When I encountered a fact about Meta-Sirius, I tested it on Real-Sirius, and the outcomes always matched. Both hated their parents, both were obviously childhood friends with James, and both had younger brothers named Regulus, which was a delicate topic for either one.

The part that was the most similar between the two was his love of sexual innuendos, directed at both James and me. But the way he spoke them to James was light-hearted and playful. Even the tone of voice he used was different. When he made a jab at me, his pitch deepened – softened into a near whisper, and sanded into a near growl, all at once.

Of course, it was in introductory drama that I was considering all of this, and at that moment, Sirius leaned in from behind me and purred breathily into my ear. If I hadn’t been so distracted by my thoughts, I probably would’ve been able to stifle the shiver. Lucky for him, James and Lily were in the front of the class presenting a reading.

The payback he had promised me hadn’t even come yet. I’d asked him, on a few occasions, if that was all he had to offer, and he assured me that whatever he did would result in my melting into a puddle of sexual frustration. This purr was actually fairly tame for Sirius.

“Is that all?” I hissed in return, and he slowly dragged his finger along my spine, down to the base of my neck. This time, the shudder at his touch was averted.

“Not even close, darling,” he hummed, gently pressing the spine of my ear between his teeth. As subtly as possible, I bit down on my bottom lip. I was not going to last much longer.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Over the course of the last few days, I’d begun to realize how badly I had it for Remus. I still wasn’t sure how this game of deadlock had gotten started, really, but it was the best damn thing that had happened to me since moving out of my parents’ house.

James was betting on me for the win. Lily bet on Remus, but told me to keep them out of it until Remus admitted his orientation. He was still partially hiding behind this charade of platonic friendship – which was okay with me, as long as he came around in the end. Until then, I had to make him cave, to admit that he was actually attracted to me. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the teasing _at all_ – in fact, as far as I could tell, he enjoyed it as much, or more, than I did.

But fucking hell, was it hard to keep my hands off of Remus until I was sure he wanted me. Especially when he tormented me just as hard as I did him. Just yesterday, I had just barely put my tongue in his ear, but I backed off – both because he hadn’t exactly given me any obvious signals to continue, and because I didn’t want to lose the game. However, in his retaliation later in the day, he had stood right in front of me – as close as physically possible without touching me – ran his eyes down my torso and fell to his knees, his hands hovering down my hips and licking his lips in the most malicious way – before tying his shoe.

 

I didn’t even know I _knew_ the number of curse words that spewed from my mouth.

 

Despite how seemingly close we had become, I hadn’t directly mentioned the visions I’d had that Remus had been the star of lately. They weren’t increasing, but neither were they declining – I’d had at least one every night in my sleep, and often more during the day. It was becoming a problem, mostly because I’d all but black out when they occurred. Each one put me emotionally closer to Remus – until I was almost sure I was in love with him – and I’d only known him a few days. It made my relationship with Remus that much more complicated.

In these dreams, Remus was my best friend. They skipped around in order, though, so I was never totally sure of whether Remus and I were fighting over that horrendous thing I’d done. From what I’d gathered so far, I’d tried to prank a bloke named Severus – or Snivellus, that was what James called him – and he’d almost been killed. I still wasn’t sure how, or why.

So far, in the dreams, I’d met him as a boy on a train, we’d all gone to a formal dance, in which I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, and he’d congratulated James over some bizarre sport called Quidditch, which I still wasn’t completely sure of how it was played. James talked about it constantly in this other universe. He was evidently a star player, of some kind.

Another thing I had come to know was that Remus often went through some sort of transformation, though I wasn’t sure what that meant. It had to do with the full moon, which was where the nickname Moony came from. Once, I considered the possibility that he might be a werewolf. I _had_ laughed it off, but who knew what was possible in this place.

Leading up to this transformation, Remus’s body temperature rose significantly, and he often laid half-naked in the silk sheets on his bed to cool off. Once, in the dream, I took a freezing cold shower so I could lie next to him. God, that one was fun. Of course, I’d already had the one where his temperature plummeted afterward, and that one might have been better.

In real time, we hadn’t discussed them, even though I was sure he was experiencing nearly the same thing I was. I desperately wondered about the content of his visions, but I hadn’t brought it up. Maybe once he admitted the more important points, then I’d ask him.

That very day, I was planning my way of getting him back for making me admit I was fantasizing about his tongue. And my brilliant plan was actually non-existent. There was no plan. Remus was under the impression that I’d spent the last few days devising a way to make him melt at the sound of my voice – which sounded brilliant – but I was on the brink. I was nearly broken down. Just being near him was almost too much.

Still, I had to keep up impressions. And Remus was foolish enough to sit in front of me in introductory drama. While James and Lily were reading, I leaned forward and purred heavily into his ear. An instant arch went into his spine, but he recovered quickly.

“Is that all?” he huffed, turning his head toward me. With his face this close to mine, I almost forgot about the game entirely as I ran a finger along his ridged spine.

“Not even close, darling,” I breathed out, biting down softly onto his ear. He must have thought that I wouldn’t see him biting not-so-softly onto his lip, his eyes fluttering closed.

“Alright, class,” the unexpected voice of the professor snapped us both back into our senses, and I flew back into my seat. “More paired readings when we come back on Wednesday. Have a good evening.” Everyone packed up in a hurry, anxious to get away from class and into the pubs. Meanwhile, I packed in no particular hurry – my evening plans were sitting red-faced and breathless right in front of me.  

“Should we stick around?” James asked with a knowing grin.

“Please don’t,” I smiled sweetly.

“Should we take Pete with us?” Lily asked, with a similar expression.

“Please do,” I smiled again. She nodded, circling around to Remus’s left, to fetch Peter. James leaned down into my face, placing his hand on top of my head.

“Play nice, boy.”  I barked softly, with a rise in my brow, as Lily pulled them both from the room. With his backpack strapped onto his shoulders, Remus turned, eyebrow also raised.

“Clearing the field, Black?” he asked. “Should I be concerned?”

“You should actually never _not_ be concerned,” I threatened with a smile as we made our way down the hallway, our steps falling in time. Remus stood closer to me than usual.

“Oh, I’m not afraid of you,” he said, nudging my shoulder with his own.

“You should be,” I argued, glancing over at him. As soon as his gaze met mine, I let my eyes travel wickedly down his waist. “I could tear you apart, Remus Lupin.”

He took a shaking breath, but his stride didn’t slow. “How so?” he asked quietly, his tongue darting out to wet his reddened lips, his grip tightening on the strap of his backpack.

“You want the long version or the short one?” I wondered, trying to remain calm with all the people walking around us in the hall. But my resolve was crumbling.

“From what I can tell, you’ve only got _long versions_ ,” he implied and my breathing hitched for a moment. God, he was so good at this game.

“I don’t know if you can handle what I’d do to you, _Moony_.” I purposefully added extra breath on the exhale of his name, and I could tell it had definitely stirred something in him.

“Try me.” His breathing had become short.

Usually, we hid behind thinly veiled innuendo and vague behavior that could readily be explained away, if confronted. But I was ready for this game to be over. Once a small crowd had passed, I spoke. “I would suck you off right here in this hallway, if you’d let me.”

Remus stopped walking instantly. When I looked back at him, his amber eyes were lit with fire, his chest was heaving immensely. “What if I said I _would_ let you?” 

 

I stood there, in the middle of the hallway, staring at him, with my mouth hanging open.

 

“Goddammit, Remus,” I growled, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the nearest empty classroom. Once behind a locked door, I shoved him hard against the wall, but quickly pulled my hands away, panting anxious breath hard into the nape of his neck. “Please,” I moaned, running the tip of my nose along his jawline. He craned his neck into it.

“Please, what?” he asked, his breathing shallow and hurried.

“Please, let me touch you,” I whined pathetically.

“Oh, God, yes,” he moaned immediately, and before my hands could reach him, he grabbed my face and pulled my lips against his, his furious tongue sliding deep into my mouth. In my response, I dragged my hands down his waist, slowing when I reached his belt. For a moment, I wondered if I was coercing him into doing all of this, but he grabbed my hand and brought it down over his zipper. I took in a deep, surprised breath at his initiative, and at the size of him, hard in my hand. We both moaned into each other simultaneously.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Beyond Control: _ **

 “Oh, I’m not afraid of you,” I grinned, rubbing my shoulder over his, telling the biggest lie I may have ever told in my life. Truthfully, I was terrified of Sirius Black. Of what he could do to me, inside and out. Afraid that he was leading me into something I wouldn’t be able to get out of. Afraid that all of this was a trick, of some sort, that I couldn’t stop falling for.

“You should be,” Sirius replied, his voice slow and thick, and when I looked over to meet his gaze, the expression on his face was devious. He let it drip down my torso, along pieces of me that I’d caught him ogling over the last few days, and it made me think that maybe it wasn’t a trick. “I could tear you apart, Remus Lupin.” The silver in his eyes glowed so bright, it shone white, and I could feel it lighting my chest on fire.

Despite the breath caught in my throat, I asked, “How so?” In anticipation of his answer, I absently licked at my lips. The skin on my knuckles nearly split from how tightly I was clutching onto the strap of my backpack.

“You want the long version or the short one?” he asked, his words cunning, but his façade crumbling – I watched his Adam’s apple bob along his long neck as he swallowed nervously, and I tried not to think about putting my mouth over it.

“From what I can tell, you’ve only got _long versions_ ,” I stated suggestively, trying to play back at his game. I was surprised when I heard his breathing halt for a moment.

“I don’t know if you can handle what I’d do to you, Moony,” he said, using the nickname that he knew did _things_ to me, and this time was no different. The swell beneath my zipper was almost unbearable – but I really wanted to hear what he would do to me.

“Try me,” I stated bravely, entirely expecting some half-threat disguised under something that could be considered as misconstrued. He barely even paused for a group of people to pass.

“I would suck you off right here in this hallway, if you’d let me.”

Immediately, I stopped – the beating of my heart turned into an eager pounding. It took Sirius a few steps to realize I wasn’t walking beside him, and I stared after him the whole way.

Finally, when he turned, I replied, breathless. “What if I said I _would_ let you?”

For a long time, he stood motionless, staring at me with his jaw slack, and I wasn’t sure he would want to know what I was fantasizing about with his mouth open like that.

“Goddammit, Remus,” he growled low, wrapping his fingers around my wrist and pulling me into the nearest dark classroom. As soon as he had locked the door, he turned and pushed me hard against the wall behind me. His hands were suddenly all over me, and then suddenly not at all. I would have panicked, except his hot, heavy breath still fell against my neck, and I could feel more heat radiating, pulsing from his crotch against mine. “Please,” he whimpered, holding his hands in the air behind him, but tracing his nose along the underside of my jaw.

“Please, what?” I asked, afraid this were all about to shatter.

“Please, let me touch you,” he exhaled, the steam of his breath swirling into my ear.

“Oh, God, yes,” I moaned instantly, not even giving him time to, before I gripped his face and pulled his mouth into mine, shoving my tongue deep. I’d fantasized about his tongue in my mouth for days, and it was nothing like I could have expected. It was certainly nothing like the only other kiss I’d ever had – it was blazing and wet and the way he moved his tongue against mine made everything else both numb and electric, all at once.

When his hands finally found their way back to my waist, it was like he had dug them straight through my ribs. He let them travel down to my belt, and my breathing shallowed in anticipation, but he stalled. I wasn’t sure if I was thinking he was nervous to try, or if I was thinking about anything at all, but I put my hand over his and guided him further down. As his fingers brushed over my swollen erection, and I let out a stimulated moan, he suddenly increased his grip, moaning in return.

“God, Moony,” he hummed into my mouth, moving his lips across my face and down my neck. “Fuck,” he mumbled into my skin, sucking hard just at the corner of my jaw. A soft, pleased cry escaped from my lips as he put his teeth on the spot, which only caused him to bite down a bit harder as his short, hot breath puffed into my ear.

When I moved his hand away from me, his nervous eyes found mine in the dimly lit room. Until I angled my hips forward, pulled his hips in closer, and thrust myself against him, the length of his cock sliding against my own. Sirius threw his head back and let out the most devastating moan, and I couldn’t help but drag my tongue along his long neck.

Suddenly, with new fury, Sirius’s hands flew back to my belt, and he fumbled with the buckles, his tongue diving back down into my mouth, for only a moment, before he knelt.

 

As he did, I could feel myself losing consciousness, and I cursed loudly at the timing of these idiotic visions. They didn’t even mean anything. They were entirely useless.

“Moony?” I heard to my right. As I began to open my eyes, I started to realize how badly everything suddenly hurt. My head pounded, my arms felt like they had been shredded to ribbons, and everything in my stomach felt like it was coming up.

“Sirius?” I called out in a rasping voice, but it wasn’t Sirius sitting next to me. It was James. And he was sitting next to my hospital bed. At the sound of Sirius’s name, an expression came over James’s face that made everything hurt worse. I had never seen him in such rage.

“Don’t you remember what happened?” James growled through clenched teeth.

“No,” I replied honestly, and when James’s eyes found mine, I saw tears there.

“You could have been killed, Moony,” he said, the tears flowing over his reddened cheeks – he removed his glasses to hold his hand over his face.

“It’s okay, Prongs. I’m still here,” I assured him by using the nicknames that we all went by in this world, taking his trembling hand into my own.

“If we had lost you, I would have never forgiven him,” he said, through shaking breath.

“Sirius did this?” I asked, a surprised breath sending a shock of pain through my chest. I winced as I put my hand over my ribs, feeling a great deal of swelling. What exactly had Sirius done? So far, I’d heard no mention of anything like this from any of the other visions.

“Sirius told Severus about the Willow,” James said, his eyes wide with panic. “He saw you last night in the Shack. He knows.” I couldn’t hide my confusion. I had no idea what any of this meant, or what this person, Severus, could possibly know that caused James such terror.

“Then how did I get like this? What happened?” James took a deep breath.

“You … the _wolf_ saw Severus. It went berserk. I got there in time to save Severus, but when I wouldn’t let it get at him …” he said, his voice breaking as he buried his face into the sheets on my bed, gripping tightly onto my hand. I suddenly noticed the bright red claw marks across James’s forearms. He lifted his head, tears streaming over his bruised, swollen cheek as he spoke. “You were nearly torn to pieces, Moony.” My throat began to feel tight – _Sirius_ had caused this. Sirius had betrayed some secret, very vital to all of us, but to me, in particular. Sirius was the reason I was nearly dead. Sirius was the reason James was in this shape.

“But he didn’t mean … Sirius didn’t …” I rambled, but James stopped me.

“I’m not sure we can trust Sirius any more, Moony,” he stated solemnly, through clenched teeth. Just as my eyes began to widen, my vision began to dim, and I was rudely transported back into the real world – where I had no more wounds, and I was locked inside a dark, empty classroom, with Sirius Black knelt before me, impatiently unbuckling my trousers.

“Sirius, wait,” I pleaded, abruptly coming out of the daze I had been under. Evidently, it had been shorter in the real world than it had been in my mind, because Sirius hadn’t lost any momentum. It didn’t look like my half-assed second thoughts were slowing him, either.

“I need you, Moony. I need you _now_ ,” he argued through heaving breath, tugging my zipper down and sliding his hand into my trousers, along the outside of my boxers.

“Ohh, God, what the _fuck_ ,” I moaned at the closeness of his touch, throwing my head back against the wall. My mind struggled between choosing to focus on the fact that Sirius could potentially betray me, as he had done in my vision, or the knowledge that Sirius had every intention of pulling me into his mouth right then.

“No, wait. Sirius, stop,” I partially decided, but still only half-arguing as Sirius pushed his face underneath the hem of my shirt to suck deeply onto my gaunt hip bone, his hand still gratuitously stroking my cock. I couldn’t even try to stifle the provoked yell that had built in my throat. Sirius bit down onto the waist of my boxers, pulling them down my hips with his teeth, scraping along my skin.

“I _can’t_ stop, Moony,” he mumbled, between kisses pressed low, and getting lower.

“No,” I said decisively, pushing him from my skin. The expression on his face, and the pain in my chest made me wish I hadn’t stopped him. “I can’t do this.” I buckled everything up quickly, despite how tight it had become.

“What?” Sirius asked loudly, his tone almost offended. “What happened?” He sat back on his heels, his bedroom eyes now looking entirely pale and worried.

“I’m sorry, something about this isn’t right,” I muttered as I fumbled with the door handle to get out. If I spent any longer looking at Sirius on his knees, I wouldn’t even want to think about the consequences any longer.

“Remus!” he called as I fled the room.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “God, Moony,” I sighed heavily, as he pulled his tongue along my bottom lip, and I knew I had to taste the rest of him. My lips traveled across his face, over his neck – when they landed on a spot just underneath his ear, he whimpered a bit. “Fuck,” I moaned into his skin, in response to the delicious sounds I could cause him to make. When I sucked on the skin underneath my lips, a soft, sighing yelp bubbled from his throat and I couldn’t help but bite down harder.

There was a small moment of panic when his hand reached down to move mine away from him – I was afraid he was rethinking this whole thing. Instead, he pushed his hips forward into mine, pulling me close to him and grinding his cock hard against mine. At the sudden, welcome arousal, my head fell backward, my eyes closed, my voice moaned as I reveled in the feeling of being pressed against Remus. Remus surprised me even further by sliding his tongue up along my neck, and licking his lips at the taste of me.

I lost all reserve – my hands went straight back to his belt, and I pulled at everything keeping him from me. I wanted to put my tongue on every fucking inch of his skin. First, I delved back into his mouth, savoring the bittersweet black tea on his tongue before I fell to my knees, glancing up at him as I unbuttoned his trousers.

“Sirius, wait,” Remus suddenly whispered, but I was running on all cylinders, and I felt completely beyond control of myself.

“I need you, Moony,” I pleaded as I unzipped him. “I need you _now_.” The thick outline of Remus’s cock against his boxer shorts overwhelmed me, and I let out a tortured sigh as I slipped my hand into the splayed waist of his trousers, pressing him to the ball of my hand.

“Ohh, God, what the _fuck_.” Remus let out a guttural moan, sliding down the wall he leaned against, and further into my touch, letting his head drift backward. But he tensed.

“No, wait. Sirius, stop,” he bargained, and I knew he was just getting cold feet – I wasn’t sure Remus had ever even had an orgasm, much less from a bloke. But I couldn’t help myself, I was completely lost to all my common sense. His hand drove into my hair, but he didn’t push me away, so I nosed my way underneath the edge of his jumper.

For a moment, I just brushed my lips against the skin of his waist, before latching onto his hip bone, sucking hard, as I continued to stroke the entire length of his erection, back and forth. The loud, rasping groan that erupted from Remus was indescribable, I never knew I could get so much gratification from a sound. Under the hypnotic motivation of his voice, I trailed light kisses along the soft hair underneath his belly button, biting down onto the waist of his shorts, pulling down with my teeth. My mouth hovered over him, I breathed purposefully hot.

“I _can’t_ stop, Moony,” I huffed anxiously, continuing my kisses further down, down, down, pulling his boxers to get at more skin. My bottom lip brushed against him through the shorts, and I began to slip my fingers inside the waist, when Remus pushed me away.

“No,” he said, out of breath, but full of force. I furrowed my eyebrows at him, my gaze full of concern and rejection. “I can’t do this.” He began to zip and buckle everything back up.

“What?” I snapped, instantly regretting the tone I had used. “What happened?” I softened my voice as I sat back on my heels, giving him some space, but not sure why.

“I’m sorry, something about this isn’t right,” he mumbled, nervously fidgeting with the door on his way out. He looked back at me one last time, before running from the room.

“Remus!” I called after him, but he didn’t return.

 

On the walk back to the dorm, I considered going to stay at James and Lily’s flat for a few days, until all of this – whatever it was – had cooled down.

What had I done wrong? There was no way I had misread him – he had been enjoying it just as much as I had. That much was evident from the way he moaned at my touch. At the memory of Remus’s breathy voice, I let out my own moan, sounding more frustrated than anything else. I rubbed my hands over my face, going over every single step, but his protests had just appeared so randomly – I had no idea what I had done to scare him off.

In the middle of a step, I felt the recognizable sensation of time slowing down, and the queasiness that usually accompanied it. Before I could react, I was flung into a chair in the middle of what looked like a hospital room. The curtain around the bed in front of me was pulled closed, but I could hear a soft, painful groaning from the other side. A groan I could now recognize – a groan that belonged to the voice of Remus.

“Moony?” I said quietly as I pulled back the curtain. My breath immediately caught in my chest, and it burned a hole in the place it sat. It was Remus, but just barely. His face was swollen and bruised, covered in no less than a dozen cuts, and bandages wrapped each arm up to the shoulders. His chest rose and fell with breath, but each one looked like a struggle.

“What do you want?” he choked out in a rough gasp. Somehow, I knew. _This_ was what I had done. This was the reason Remus could never forgive me. I didn’t know how, but I was responsible for this. Tears immediately formed in my eyes.

“Remus, I am so sorry,” I wept, reaching out to touch his hand, but he recoiled, despite the amount of energy it seemed to take him to do it.

“I thought we were friends, Sirius. I thought you …” he trailed off, shutting his eyes tightly. I gripped onto the side of his bed, tears splashing onto the white sheets.

“I do! You know I do,” I interrupted, assuring him that I loved him, that I’d always loved him. Real or not, I had been friends with this version of Remus since we were eleven.

He huffed sharply through his nose. “Right.” For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t say more, but he continued, more ferociously. “You know it’s not even about this. It’s Severus. I could have _killed_ him, Sirius. I could have …” The pain in his eyes was more than I could stand.

“I know, and I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I told Severus about the Willow,” I spouted off a confession that I didn’t even understand, but I knew was the truth. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I just wanted him to leave us alone.” I shook my head hard.

“By making your best friend murder him?” Remus shouted. If I thought the pain in his eyes had been bad, I had no idea the depths of anger and sadness and disappointment that they could hold. How could I have done this? To the person I loved, more than anything?

“No! I didn’t mean …” I began to explain, but he interrupted.

“Get out, Sirius.”

“But, Moony …”

“Get out!” he shouted, loud and heart-wrenching enough that it shook me from the vision, and I felt the step I had taken land on the concrete below my foot. When I reached up to my face, I felt the tears that had been there in the dream. Now I knew why Remus had walked out on me. I knew he had seen the same thing. And like me, he didn’t know how, or why.

 

But he knew that I had betrayed him.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Half My Life: _ **

It had been two days since I’d seen Sirius. He’d sent Lily over to collect some of his things from the dorm so he could camp out on their sofa for a while. If she knew what happened, she didn’t mention it. She asked me if I was alright, and I mumbled a reply.

Truthfully, I wasn’t alright. That vision was the worst I’d ever had, and I hadn’t had another one since, which left me to dwell on it in every waking second. I wanted to go back. I needed to see Sirius. Had he been worried about me? Was he even sorry for what he had done?

The worst part was that I couldn’t even think about Sirius without feeling like a gaping hole had been ripped through my stomach. It wasn’t as if it had happened in real time – why was I so fixated on this? Why could I still feel the bruises, and gashes, and pain that I should have left in the dream? Worse still, it felt like Sirius Black himself had reached into my chest and personally eviscerated all of my internal organs – my heart, explicitly.

I may as well have been in love with him all my life – that’s how heavily the ache in my chest dragged on. But I couldn’t be in love with Sirius. We had known each other for a few days, had a single moment of near-passion, and that was it. I couldn’t love him.

Especially not now. I was petrified of what he might do to me. Almost as if the vision were some sort of premonition, and I was being warned to stay away from him. If that were true, why was it that the only thing I wanted to do was let him hold me again?

Reluctantly, I walked into introductory drama, much earlier than I should have, but I wanted to sit as far to the back as possible. Sirius loved to sit toward the front of the class, because he loved to volunteer, or be chosen, for anything dramatic. Maybe I would be lucky, and he would think that I just skipped class that day. Maybe he wouldn’t notice me.

Several other students trickled into the room over the next half-hour. Peter looked up at me in confusion when he entered – I hadn’t mentioned anything to him about Sirius, I’d been telling him I was under the weather. He moved to come sit next to me, but I silently stopped him, pointing to the seat next to James’s usual spot, and then pretended to cough. He nodded, and sat, but the expression on his face told me he wasn’t buying my story.

The very last person to enter the classroom was Sirius. His eyes were on the floor; he didn’t even look up to try to find me. He barely even glanced up at my empty seat in front of the one he usually sat in. His eyes were dull and pale, like he hadn’t slept in days; his clothes were wrinkled, his hair matted. He looked exactly like I did.

“What is happening in this room today?” the professor remarked loudly at the dismal, suffocating silence that had filled the room. Nobody answered him, so he continued.

“Does anyone have anything they want to share? Maybe a reading will help to get us out of this foul mood. Sirius, I can always count on you,” he said, holding his palm out flat in Sirius’s direction. Sirius raised his head, slightly, blinking slowly.

“No,” he replied in barely a whisper. The professor looked entirely shocked.

“Come on, son, there must be something!” he exclaimed, trying to inject false excitement into the room. I could hear chalk scraping against a board in the adjacent room.

Finally, Sirius stood and made his way toward the front of the room. Breathing was suddenly a lost skill – I wondered what he would say, if he would see me.

 

“He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?” he began, his voice quivering as he spoke, but his head kept down. “He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.”

 

For a moment, he paused, taking in a slow, shaking breath. All noise in the atmosphere had ceased – there was only Sirius Black, and nothing else.

 

“I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder.” Finally, his eyes rose, and they found mine instantly. If there were tears in his eyes, I couldn’t see them through my own. Sirius continued, his voice cracking in misery. “And went with half my life about my ways.”

The look on his face as he finished speaking told me everything. It was an expression of guilt and regret, desperate to fix what he had broken. So he had seen it, too.

 

Tearing his gaze away from mine, he silently walked from the room.

 

And I ran instantly after him.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 James and Lily didn’t quite understand the reason behind my sudden depression. Sure, I mentioned that I’d made a pass at Remus – more than a pass, really, but I’d left the heated details out – and that he had, more or less, turned me down.

After Lily retrieved some of my things from the dorm, she made me an enormous mug of hot chocolate – she made sure to stay away from tea, for obvious reasons, but the chocolate wasn’t much better – while James put on my favorite records. I couldn’t explain to them what I had seen, or why I was so unsettled by it. In fact, I couldn’t even explain it to myself.

Obviously, I hadn’t actually done this horrible thing to Remus – at least not to _my_ Remus, the _real_ Remus. Then why did it feel like I had? Why did I have this incredible, stifling mound of guilt in my chest? Seeing him in that condition – barely alive, bruised and battered, in immense pain – was horrible enough, but knowing that I was the cause of it proved to break me.

I had skipped all my afternoon classes that day. And the next day. Foolishly, I had tried to sleep through it all, but every time I drifted off, I would get that familiar, sickening feeling of falling off into a life that I didn’t want to be mine. And I couldn’t take seeing Remus like that, or hear his shattering voice as he told me to stay out of his life forever.

When James finally convinced me to go to introductory drama, I wasn’t surprised when Remus’s seat was empty. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d dropped out altogether, just to get away from me. After what I’d done – or would do? – to him, I couldn’t blame him.

The professor sensed the tension in the room. My mood – usually energetic and excitable and free and partially in love – had plummeted into desolation. It seeped out of my pores and consumed the bright, clean air around us, replacing it with dank, sweltering misery.

Suddenly, the professor spoke my name. “Sirius, I can always count on you,” he proposed hopefully. I didn’t even bother to look up at him. I assumed he wanted me to get in front of the class and act like my usual lively self, but I was too far gone for that.

“No,” I replied in a bare whisper. Though he looked shocked, he pressed on.

“Come on, son, there must be something!” he shouted, clapping his hands together. For a moment, I let him writhe in the awkwardness of an unanswered request. Then, I stood.

I didn’t raise my head as I spoke. “He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?” I recited softly, feeling the trembling of my voice in the back of my throat. “He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.” Angry, bitter tears threatened at the brink of my eyelids, but I blinked them away. They weren’t going to do me any good anyway.

With a calming breath, I continued. “I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder.” In the moment that I rose my eyes, they fell directly upon those of Remus Lupin’s, filled with tears, spilling one after the other down his freckled cheeks. At the sight of it, I couldn’t keep my voice from breaking, but I finished nonetheless. “And went with half my life about my ways.”

 

For the tiniest of seconds, I held his gaze, both of us broken and confused. And it was then that I walked from the room.

 

I may have let myself smile when I heard him hurriedly chasing after me.

 

“Sirius!” he called, sounding properly out of breath. Before I could even fully turn to face him, he pressed my cheeks between his palms and kissed me feverishly, desperately, like he would never again know the taste of my lips. Liquid sentiment spilled over my cheeks.

“I am so sorry, Moony,” I cried between softly pressed kisses. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re apologizing for something that didn’t even happen,” he laughed quietly, brushing his lips over my cheeks, the day-old stubble on his chin scratching against my skin.

“Then you _have_ seen it,” I sniffled. “You _know_ what I did.” For a moment, Remus stalled his kissing, pulling back to look me in the face. His rich, cinnamon eyes bore strongly into the dulled grey of my own, and he smiled at me for the first time in days.

“I don’t know what it is that we saw,” he replied honestly, thumbing through the whiskers down my jawline. “Whatever it is, real or not – seeing how badly it’s killing you hurts a thousand times worse than what might not have even happened.”

With a sigh of relief, I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead against his. “Why does it feel like I’ve been in love with you my whole life?” Eyes still closed, I felt the delicate press of his lips against mine again, and I eagerly reciprocated his kiss.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he said. I could feel the smile on his lips.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “I know things I shouldn’t know,” he stated, his voice wavering a bit as he sipped the hot cup of tea I’d just placed into his waiting hands. We’d skipped the last of introductory drama, and had headed back to the dorms, hand-in-hand. Throughout the whole walk, Sirius never left a single pause in stroking my thumb tenderly with his own.

“Peter,” I suddenly stated with no explanation. Sirius raised his head to look at me, so I continued. “I saw Peter in my dream before I’d ever met him.”

His eyebrows furrowed, but he nodded. “When I saw you, in the hospital bed, I said something about a willow. _The_ Willow. I said, _‘I don’t know why I told Severus about the Willow.’_ But I don’t even know what that means.” At the mention of those two things in conjunction – Severus and the Willow – my shoulders shuddered a bit, though I tried to keep it from Sirius. The pain he felt over all of this was still evident in his uneven breathing and the way the shining color of his silver eyes hadn’t fully returned.

“James mentioned a willow, too,” I added. “In the one I had.”

Sirius shook his head in confusion. “I wish I could figure out what _actually_ happened. I only know pieces. You told me you could’ve killed him – Severus. And then, I know you go through some sort of transformation.” I nodded, indicating that I’d heard the word _transformation_ a few times in my visions, as well.

“I don’t know what that means, exactly.”

“It’s during the full moon,” Sirius said suddenly, and I was surprised. I hadn’t heard that, but it was oddly coincidental that I actually had trouble during full moons. I chuckled.

“Like a werewolf?” I joked, raising my eyebrows and smirking. Sirius bit his lip.

“Please, don’t do that,” he grinned, running his hand through his hair. I blushed.

“Do what? All I did was smile,” I argued playfully.

“I know. It’s fucking adorable.” His eyes were mercurial.

 

For the rest of the night, Sirius and I stayed awake, sharing every single detail of each dream we’d had since we met. There were many things that were shockingly similar. We could each describe the shared dorm room we shared with James and Peter in perfectly matching aspects – from the burgundy sheets to the gold tassels hanging from the curtains. We could both entail the layout of the infamous train that we had first met on as eleven-year-old boys. We each had memories of a place called the _‘Shrieking Shack’_ and seeing what looked like a rat perched carelessly on the antlers of an enormous stag. At some point, we both fell asleep – Sirius with his head on top of my chest, and me, with my fingers still in his hair.

When I awoke, it was to the sound of Sirius’s frantic cursing and scrambling to gather his things off of the floor. For a moment, I sat staring at him, through eyes clouded with sleep.

“Public speaking is in 5 minutes, and I have to give a speech today,” he said, standing still with wide eyes for half a second before bending to pull his boots on.

“You can cut through the art department. I’ll show you,” I offered through a yawn as I slipped into my own shoes. We were out the door the next second.

 

Silently, we slid into the classroom, just as the professor began speaking at the front of the room. We claimed the only two open seats, and I ended up sitting behind Sirius. It was in this dreadful, wonderful moment that I devised a horrible scheme.

As subtly as possible, I leaned forward, tucking Sirius’s hair behind his ear and placing my lips against it. Immediately, he tensed, taking in an unsteady breath.

“Sirius, darling. I’m afraid it’s time I got my retaliation,” I whispered, reminding him of when he had done exactly this to me only a few days prior. He let out a short laugh.

“That is adorable. You think you can break me?”

“I’m certain of it,” I replied, dropping my voice as low and soft as I could, just before I ran my tongue along the back of his ear. He shifted ever so slightly down into his seat.

“Sirius Black,” the professor called as I sat back into my chair. I smiled innocently as he made his way to the front of the class, prepared note cards in hand. I was actually mildly surprised he had put even that much effort into it.

His speech was on the history of American rock and roll – I knew because I had helped him with sentence structure and grammar before we had our tiff. I knew absolutely nothing of the content, and I was fairly sure he’d only asked me to help him then so he could try nuzzling his face into my neck. Actually, that had worked splendidly for him.

“The birth of rock and roll in America began in the early 1950’s,” he began, and it was impossible for me not to notice the rise in the pitch of his voice. How delightful – he was nervous about what I might do.

I started off very tame – all I did was lick my lips. A miniscule rise in his left eyebrow was all that was awarded to me. The next time his eyes darted over to mine, I bit down on my bottom lip, and let it slowly pull out from between my teeth. For that effort, I noticed the muscles in his neck tense – his words paused a moment as he swallowed.

There was only a few more minutes left of his speech, and I still had barely even gotten a rise out of him. All out of options, I propped my face up with my palm and, once the motion attracted his attention, slowly and deliberately drove my thumb into my mouth, pulling out and pushing in and sucking hard enough to cave in my cheeks.

His words immediately began to trail off as he cocked his head to the side and watched me, mesmerized, with his mouth hanging ajar and his eyebrow raised high. Quickly, he cleared his throat, trying to continue, but having completely lost his place.

“And then the Beatles broke up, Jimi Hendrix died, and everything was horrible until Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon. You’re welcome, America,” he rambled, totally senselessly, while I was trying not to roll out of my chair in laughter.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_ Bad Influence: _ **

Oh, I was going to get him back for this. He remained surprisingly quiet for the remainder of the class period – I actually looked back at him a few times to see if he was still awake. The first time, he actually winked at me. How could one bloke be this goddamn cute?

“That was your only class today, right?” he asked me as we walked from the room, flooded by crowds of students. I smiled eagerly.

“Technically, yes. But if you think I’m not going to follow you to _your_ class, then you really don’t know me at all, love.” He narrowed his eyes at me, suspiciously, but the smile endured on his lips. I never would have pegged this little bookworm to enjoy these games.

Truthfully, the best plan, as I’d discovered before, was not to have one. I didn’t actually intend to do anything to poor Remus just now. Instead, I would wait for the perfect moment, and spring something on him spontaneously that he wouldn’t be able to talk his way of.

His next class was Victorian Literature, an elective he didn’t happen to share with Lily, which was good for us both. I didn’t even try to argue when he asked if I had memorized his schedule. Of course I had. Once in the room, I took the seat behind him.

Throughout the class, he kept turning slightly, to watch me out of the corner of his eye. I hadn’t even whispered anything indecent into his ear, and the anticipation was driving him mad.

The instant the professor announced the end of class, Remus turned. “Go on, get on with it already,” he whined nervously. I smiled, unassumingly.

“Why, Remus, whatever could you mean?” I grinned, walking to the door of the classroom as he desperately shoved his books back into his bag.

“Where are you going?” he called, and I just waved.

 

It ended up being several hours since I had left Remus in suspense. James had seen me on campus and was anxious to know the result of what happened with the two of us. We went to his flat as I explained that we were working on it – how else could you define what we were doing?

After explaining to Lily that neither she nor James had won their previous bets, I made my way back up to the dorm, hoping that Remus would be there. After all, Victorian Literature was his only class for the day. Now that we were on speaking, teasing, kissing terms again, I could hardly stand to stay away from him.

When I walked into our room, Remus was sprawled out across his bed – his arm draped across his face, with one leg propped up, his knobby knee jutting toward the ceiling. I was, at first, enormously disappointed to see that the telephone was stuck to one ear, but let a smile wash over my face, looking at him in the pink evening light from outside the window behind him.

“I know, I’m sorry, Mum, I just …” he said, trailing off as he saw me enter, a single eyebrow rising slightly. Innocently, I just waved at him, throwing my bag onto the floor, and kicking my boots off next to it. After all, I certainly couldn’t accost him while he was on the phone with his mother. I paused. Could I?

With a mischievous glint in my eyes, I stood at the foot of his bed, letting my eyes scour over the length of him, until I met his warning gaze. Slowly, I crawled onto the bed, keeping myself at the foot, pawing at the bottom hems of his trousers. He swallowed.

“No, I’m here. My, um … Sirius – my roommate just came in,” he said, his voice wavering nervously as I traced my finger around the bone of his ankle. Covering the receiver, he whispered in a hiss, “I’ll kill you, Sirius Black.” But he couldn’t cover the laugh that slipped from his full, pink lips before he returned to his conversation.

With a smile on my face, I took his bare foot into my hands, pressing firm against the ball of his foot with my thumbs. His eyes drifted closed for a moment, I could hear his mother talking through the other end of the phone. I pressed the palm of my hand to his calf and pushed upward, cupping my hand at the back of his knee. He shifted upward, slightly, a hitch in his voice as he spoke. His eyes met mine and I wasn’t sure if his expression begged me to stop or to continue.

To be sure, I wiggled my fingers forward a bit and Remus, though taking a suddenly sharp breath inward, didn’t put his hand out. Our eyes still locked, I raised my eyebrows, whispering a “Please?” And Remus just looked at me, somewhat dumbstruck, and nodded.

With his permission, I impatiently crawled over where he lay, nestling my hips between his spread legs and nuzzling my face into his neck, opposite of the phone. As every other day, he had on a jumper, but this one had a collar that zipped all the way down to the middle of his chest. Despairingly slowly, I pulled the zipper, placing my lips onto his skin as soon as it was made available to me. Kissing just underneath his jaw elicited a soft exhale from Remus.

As I unzipped the collar and kissed down his neck, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation he was having with his mother. “Yes, Sirius _Black_. Actually, he’s quite nice. No, he’s not a bad influence.” I laughed as I nibbled softly onto his collar bone. I wondered if his mother would consider this situation as being under a bad influence. Well, literally, yes.

Eagerly, I kissed my way back up to his lips, careful not to make any incriminating sounds, but anxious to have his tongue against mine again. A few times, he had to pull away to answer, and I heard the mumbled voice of his mother ask if he were busy.

“Just doing … homework,” he lied, as I strategically pulled the jumper over his head, only to immediately press my lips to the skin of his bare chest. “Maybe I should go and finish it then,” he bargained, and I drew my tongue over my teeth to show him how quickly he was about to finish. But Mrs. Lupin evidently had a bit more to say and he rolled his head back onto his pillow in frustration.

Still, I was completely undeterred. My lips covered every inch of bare skin available to me, spending courteous amounts of time with his scars, particularly the one right across his hip, as Remus tensed magnificently every time my lips were upon it. I had almost forgotten that I had only ever felt this scar in the very first vision I’d had about Remus. Yet, there it was, at my lips.

As I sucked softly on it, Remus instantly held the phone at arm’s length, so that he could say, “Fuck, Sirius,” in the breathiest moan I’ve ever heard. Finally, I decided, his mother was just going to have to listen in, if she wouldn’t hang up, and I began to unbutton his trousers.

Remus immediately began to ramble. “Mum, listen, I’ve really got to …” She evidently cut him off, and he bit down on the knuckles of his free hand as I spread my fingers inside Remus’s unzipped trousers. “Sirius,” he accidentally breathed hard into the receiver through the curled fist between his teeth.

For a moment, we lay still, looking terrified at each other. “No, he’s helping me finish my homework. It’s becoming quite hard.” I buried my face to laugh, not directly realizing I had buried it right into Remus’s crotch and was breathing rather hard into it. Once I realized it, however, I helped myself to moving my lips against him, outside his boxers. At once, he seized at the middle, his free hand flying into my hair, a tiny, inescapable moan pressing through.

“No, Mum, I swear there isn’t a girl here,” he stated into the receiver, trying to cover his breathlessness. Again, I laughed, but with my lips over him, it likely felt more like vibrations to Remus, and he held the phone at length to let out another groan. “Sirius, _please_ ,” he whimpered, though it faded into a desperate sort of laugh. I slowly rose an eyebrow as he returned the phone to his ear – I could still hear the electronic murmur of his mother talking away.

“You might not want your mother to listen in on this next bit,” I suggested as I pushed his trousers further down his hips. His breath fell out in steps, but he seemed suddenly speechless as I tucked my fingers into the waist of his boxers, pulling down a little at a time, and pressing hot kisses to every inch of his skin, as soon as it was uncovered. My lips had just reached the crease at his leg, my cheek brushing against the swollen skin underneath his boxers, when he sat up.

 “Ooooh, _God_ , okay, Mother – I-I have to go – I’m sorry – I love you,” he stammered through a moan, slamming the phone back onto the cradle. Immediately, his hands gripped tightly onto the collar of my shirt and he pulled me up toward him, his lips crashing furiously into mine. “Dammit, Sirius,” he groaned, sliding his tongue between my teeth.

“Well, _Moony_ ,” I hummed delightedly between kisses.

“Shut up.” He breathed anxiously into my mouth, his hands working precisely on the fastenings keeping him from me. When he finally pushed his slender fingers past the waist of my trousers, instantly sliding a tight grip along my cock, I took in a surprised, sharp breath. I barely even had time to moan an “ _Oh, fuck me,”_ before he drove me backward and shoved me hard against the wall next to his bed.

“Jesus, Remus.” I spoke in shallow, staggering breaths, astonished by the impassioned desperation I felt emanating from my roommate. His lips migrated into the nape of my neck – I tilted my head to let him get to as much skin as he could. One hand was buried into the back of my hair, the other still moving steadily beneath my zipper.

“I’ve imagined doing this to you for _weeks_ , Padfoot,” he purred into my ear.

“I’ve been doing that since the second I saw you,” I panted in return. His grip tightened.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing.” His nervous breath puffed hard against my skin.

“Well, you’re doing it really fucking well.” My laugh was interrupted by a dissatisfied whine as Remus removed his hands from me, but it returned when he pulled the shirt over my head. The second my shirt was in the air, his fingers were gripped around me again, his teeth settling tightly onto my exposed collarbone. I took in a breath between my teeth, hissing slightly.

“You make me feel absolutely manic,” he groaned, as if complaining.

“You have no idea _what_ I can make you feel, Moony,” I growled, pushing my tongue into his mouth and my hands into the open waist of his trousers, against his hips. I may have been surprised when he helped me along and kicked them off onto the floor. Even more surprised when he reciprocated, pushing my trousers further down, and off my hips.

With my hands still on his hips, I pulled him down to straddle over me. With only our boxers separating us, he angled his hips, grinding his cock down hard against mine. The moan that fell from his lips was the most desperate, carnal sound I’d ever heard, and I wanted to hear him make it for the rest of my life. No, not just that – I needed to get him to make it again, immediately. And I needed my name to follow it.

Quickly, I pushed him backward with the force of my kiss – an expertly timed shove against his shoulder and a twist of my hips, and he was lying back on the bed. I knelt over him, taking in the full view of a nearly-naked Remus Lupin underneath me. The expression on his face was completely lascivious, he bit down hard on his lip as his eyes scoured over me.

I rested my weight against him, pouring my tongue into every space in his mouth, tasting every single aroma that made him Remus, making sure to circle my hips over him, our heated, pulsing erections given the right amount of friction. My mouth traveled over his scarred face, his tight neck, down his freckled chest. Evidently, he foresaw where I was going, because his shaking fingers immediately knotted into my long hair as I reached the scar on his hip.

“Sirius,” he said softly, the tone of his voice slightly hesitant. With that tone, he had told me everything – he hadn’t ever experienced this – at least not from a bloke.

“I’ve got you, Moony,” I hummed deeply against his skin, drawn back to the scar at his hip, and his tensed muscles imperceptibly slacked under my lips. A soft, relaxed, pleasured sort of sigh fell from Remus’s lips as I traversed further south, kissing all the way as my fingers tucked into the elastic of his boxers. His breathing sped back up, however, as I guided his boxers down his hips and took him into my hand. The moment I pursed my lips against his erect, pink head, a stimulated whimper came from behind his bitten lip.

Despite how badly I wanted to pull the whole impressive length of him into my throat, I kept it slow, swirling my tongue over him, pressing my wet lips to the tip of his cock. He tried to keep his reactions tame, but his chest was heaving with his frantic breath. I kissed the head of his cock as tenderly as I could, circling my tongue, dragging it down the length of his shaft. It was all he could do not to buck his hips, in an attempt to drive himself further into my mouth.

Finally, with my fingers gripping tightly onto the base, I plunged him down into my throat, humming lightly, and dragging my teeth softly against him on the way out. Instantly, he was incoherent, moaning heavily with his head thrown back into the pillow.

 

This time, he called out my name.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “No, Mum, I swear there isn’t a girl here,” I said, trying hard to breath normally, despite the fact that Sirius Black had his face buried in my crotch and every time he _breathed_ , for fuck’s sake, it was hot and wet and his laugh vibrated everything beneath him. I was coming apart. I held the phone away from me to beg, “Sirius, please,” with a pathetic whimper that I tried to disguise as a laugh. But he rose one of those dark, high-arching brows, and I couldn’t even comprehend that I was holding a phone, much less supposed to be talking on it.

“You might not want your mother to listen in on this next bit,” he grinned deviously, his pink tongue sliding out to wet his lips as he pushed my trousers down my thighs. As he put his lips back to my skin – just above my boxers – I went completely motionless. God, I wanted him to do it – to do _anything_ to me. His spidery fingers curled into the waist of my boxers and he dragged them excruciatingly slowly down my hips, his lips following closely. The moment his lips contacted the crease at my thigh, and his stubbly chin brushed against me beneath my boxers, I fucking lost it. I started to keen at his mouth, just realizing I was holding the phone.

“Ooooh, _God_ , okay, Mother,” I tried to cover it up. “I-I have to go – I’m sorry – I love you,” I stumbled over my words as I slammed the receiver back onto the cradle. Sirius looked up at me with a torturous smile, but I surprised him, pulling him up to me by the collar of his shirt, and slamming his mouth against my own. “Dammit, Sirius,” I groaned, though not entirely complaining as I drove my tongue deeply into his mouth.

“Well, _Moony_ ,” he said, pretending to be shocked at my forwardness.

“Shut up,” I demanded breathily, instantly tearing at the buttons on his trousers, and frantically gliding my hand into them as soon as there was open space. The feel of him in my hand was beyond fathomable – he was searing and thick and pulsing against my fingers, as an _“Oh, fuck me,”_ escaped roughly from his lips. _Fuck_ , how badly I wanted to do that. In response, I turned and shoved him hard against the wall next to my bed.

“Jesus, Remus.” His surprised breath stumbled from his lips, as if he were stunned by how badly I wanted him. My lips moved down into the crook of his neck, savoring the taste of the desperate sweat of Sirius Black, keeping my hand firm around the imprint of his cock against his boxers, driving another hand up into the depths of his dark hair.

“I’ve imagined doing this to you for _weeks_ , Padfoot,” I confessed, panting into his ear.  

“I’ve been doing that since the second I saw you,” he quipped, and I couldn’t prevent the tightening that happened in my hand – he pulsed harder in return.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing,” I mumbled, breathing hard into his neck.

“Well, you’re doing it really fucking well.” A half-moan, half-laugh fell from his lips, and I suddenly realized I was in love with the way he laughed. For a moment, he let out an empty whine as I pulled my hands away from him, but laughed again as I pulled his shirt off, over his head. As soon as it was gone, I pressed myself against his bare skin, keeping my hand between us to grope him again, and biting down softly onto his thin collarbone. The noise he made sounded like a hiss, and it drove me out of my mind.

“You made me feel absolutely manic,” I complained with a hidden smile.

“You have no idea _what_ I can make you feel, Moony,” he growled, and before I could even curse in response, he thrust his tongue back into my mouth, and I gratefully lapped at it with my own. His hands slipped into my trousers, against my hips, and as he moved to push them down, I kicked them off onto the floor, and then removed his along with them.

His hands put pressure on my hips, moving them to where he wanted, until I was seated right over him – I could feel the bare brush of his cock to mine. Urgently, I inclined my hips against his, grinding down onto his crotch. At the feel of him pressed hard against me, I couldn’t suppress the shameless, wanton moan that bubbled up from my lungs.

This reaction seemed to ignite something in Sirius, and he pushed me back down onto the bed, so that he was knelt over me. The expression on his face as he looked down at me gave rise to a new heat in my groin. I wanted him to look at me that way forever. I bit hard onto my lip.

He laid against me, diving his tongue deep down into my throat with a frenzied groan, rotating his hips and everything between them hard against mine. His tongue wandered quickly around my face, down my neck, across my chest, which felt like it was on fire with his lips against it. He got back to the scar on my hip – he had been paying gratuitous attention to my scars, this one in particular because of the way it made me writhe underneath him – and my breathing suddenly halted as I began to see where this was going. Not that I felt any need to stop him _in the slightest_ , but I was entirely new to this field.

“Sirius,” I said quietly, my confidence wavering. He looked up at me with the softest smile I’d ever seen on his face, before turning his lips back to my scar.

“I’ve got you, Moony,” he hummed delicately, kissing gently against my skin. I could practically feel the nervous tension melt from my muscles and I let a relieved sigh pass through my lips. How could I feel so unequivocally safe around him?

Suddenly, with the anxiety gone, another sort of tension roared back into my senses, as Sirius slid his slender fingers into the waist of my boxers, glided them down my hips, kissing and biting all the way down. As soon as my shorts were out of the way, Sirius took me into his hand, barely brushing his lips to the head of my cock, and I must’ve whimpered again.

Watching Sirius press his bright, full lips to the tip – opening his lips just so, just enough to trail his bottom lip and his tongue along my length – was practically enough to finish me, when the way it felt was enough on its own. He put his lips around me, circling his tongue inside his teeth, and I could do nothing but mumble to him about how amazing his mouth felt.

Then, his fingers gripped tightly to the base of my cock, and he plunged the entire length of me into his mouth at once. I was on the verge of screaming, when he began humming, the vibrations of his perfect lips echoed into my skin. He carefully closed his teeth around me, dragging them along as he pulled me from his throat. I forgot how to breathe, how to think – there was nothing in the world but Sirius Black and his perfect fucking mouth.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Sirius,” I moaned loudly, craning my neck back against the pillow, feeling as though I was about to lose consciousness entirely.

“Oh, God, _yes_ ,” he mumbled against the tip of me as he sunk me down into his throat again. I could feel him pressed hard against my leg, and I suddenly needed something _else._

When he came back up, I grabbed his face. “I want to _feel_ you against me,” I half-requested, pushing him down onto my bed, and completely undressing him, taking a moment to admire the stimulated state that I had put him in.

In a feverish state, I put all my weight on him, sliding up against his sweat-glistened chest, and he pulled my mouth into his. His tongue lashed roughly against mine – he was suddenly as manic as I was – and his slick cock slid against my stomach. When we finally aligned, and I felt the heat of his cock flush to mine, I couldn’t help saying his name, again.

“Jesus Christ, Padfoot,” I breathed out into his mouth, which he quickly covered again with his lips. One hand drove into my hair, the other went down between where we were pressed together, and he wrapped his fingers around both of us, where we were sliding against each other. I bit down hard on his lip, using his hand as leverage to glide harder against him.

“Moony, yes, _God_ , yes,” he moaned, with a sense of urgency in his voice, the pitch raising as he thrust his hips hard against mine, the slick sweat of his cock lubricating the searing friction.

The two of us moved together in time, I brought my hand down over his, increasing the tension around both of us. And Sirius began calling out my name, over and over, louder and louder, and I didn’t even think about anyone listening in, or anything but Sirius fucking Black.

With one last loud, _“Fuck, Moony,”_ Sirius came, hard and hot all over our hands, and the noise that ripped from my throat was guttural and foreign. Just as I felt a surge of intense heat, and I formed Sirius’s name on my tongue, he leaned forward and licked up my chest, taking my nipple between his sharp teeth. My spine instantly arched, a string of expletives erupting from my lips as I moaned Sirius’s name, coming white-hot just over the place Sirius had.

“Fuck,” I groaned softly as I collapse onto the bed next to Sirius, ignoring the mess sticking to both of us, sticking us together. “ _God_ , Sirius,” I breathed out, looking over.  

He lazily raised one of those high-arching brows. “Just wait until I suck you off.”

“Looking bloody forward to that, actually,” I grinned through exhaustion, grabbing the sheet from the bed and trying – failing, really – to clean either of us. I was stopped when Sirius reached over and took my face into his hands. His eyebrows were suddenly furrowed.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 God, this was everything I’d wanted from Remus – then, why did it feel like I could lose it all at any second? There he was, lying naked, right next to me, and I still felt like it wasn’t real – like none of this was real. It wasn’t just the adrenaline wearing off, it wasn’t just coming down from the high of an orgasm. It was in my gut. Like he was about to be ripped away from me.

“Moony,” I whispered, holding his unshaven cheeks in my hands. “I don’t know what’s going on. With us. But I feel like I’ve loved you half my life, like I’ve known you so much longer than just the last month.” It was becoming hard to speak to him now – if I didn’t know better, it was almost as if I were nervous to tell him how I felt. That was absurd, he was lying in my arms, with the evidence of exactly how I felt about him splattered all over his belly.

“I know, Pads,” he said, his smile turning slightly concerned.

“The worst part is I know that I’m about to lose you,” I said, my voice becoming smaller as my throat grew tighter. He shook his head instantly.

“That’s ridiculous,” he let out a short laugh, but his demeanor was much like mine. Like he was afraid. “I’ve told you before, I’m not going anywhere.” My head began to hurt, recalling memories of him saying those words to me – in my bed at the castle, tangled up in his lanky limbs as I sobbed into his chest, a letter from my parents in my hands.

“This is what I mean, you’ve never said those words to me, Remus,” I argued, my head becoming light, dizzy, spinning. He looked perplexed before realizing the same thing.

“No. You’re right. It was …”

“In a dream. In a dream that _you_ had, but I can recall every detail from,” I shook my head, trying to focus on his face. As long as I could keep him, as long as I could stay with him. 

“Just like Regulus. And Peter. The castle, the great hall, the tower,” he listed, his eyes growing wider and duller. My heart began to pound, my chest aching from its beating.

“I don’t want to go back there, Moony,” I cried, my eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I want to stay here, with you, I can’t lose you again. Please.”

“It doesn’t matter, Padfoot,” he said, his voice sharp and biting, calling out as if to hold my attention. While I could feel the familiar feeling of falling back into the wrong life, I could see the same thing happening in his eyes, in his expression. “It doesn’t matter, because even if we do have to go back, we’ll still be there together. I’ll still be in love with you, Sirius.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_** Somebody to Love: ** _

 I didn’t feel the snap, the connection between me and the Sirius from the other place – what I suddenly knew was the _real_ Sirius. Was that all this was? A deeply involved dream? Would Remus even remember any of it? Had the Remus I’d been with even been there, at all?

 Suddenly, it was like a projection – like I was watching the rerun of something that had already happened to me. Remus and I stood in an empty room – squashy chairs surrounded a fireplace, the embers dying out, leaving an amber glow in the room around them. I was watching myself, as if through glass – I could only wait to see how it played out.

“Please. Hit me. Hex me. Anything, Remus, please,” he begged, the Sirius that wasn’t me. Remus was completely motionless, his back to the Sirius speaking to him. No tears, no anger, nothing. He was blank. He didn’t say anything in return.

“I know I wasn’t thinking,” he continued the plea. “I just wanted to scare him away from snooping. Maybe I wanted him to get hurt, but I didn’t want him to die.” Again, Remus didn’t even acknowledge that anyone was even standing in the same room with him. From behind the looking glass, tears welled up in my eyes, as I finally knew – this was my first attempt to get Remus to speak to me after the incident. All at once, I knew exactly what had happened, and more importantly, why. It was like remembering a life I hadn’t even known I had.

“I am so fucking sorry, Moony. I had no idea you were going to get so hurt, and seeing you … like that …” His voice cracked – the me beyond the glass – and he put his hands up to his face, sobbing into them for a moment. Tears flowed unrestricted down my cheeks as I remembered this moment, as I remembered what was about to happen.

This other Sirius walked around Remus, took his face into his hands to force him to look at him. Remus’s eyes were glassy, dull, unmoved. Sirius’s chest heaved nervously.

“Please, Moony. I love you,” he sobbed. “I’ve always loved you.” Before Remus could back away, Sirius softly pressed his lips against Remus’s. A few tears finally sprang into Remus’s surprised eyes, but he pulled away quickly. He shook his head quickly, shoving hard past Sirius, and out of the room. The Sirius beyond the glass sank to his knees.

I could remember it as clearly as if it had just happened to me – and I knew it had. I could even remember what happened the next day, in Potions, when I had tried again.

 

_“Remus, please,” I tried to argue, stepping toward him, but he retracted._

_“No.”_

_“I love you,” I blurted out._

_“Stop saying that!” he shouted, and I flinched. His head fell as he let out a short breath. “I don’t even think you know what love is, Sirius.”_

 

Before I realized it, I suddenly knew exactly what was happening. I knew why Remus and I were stuck in some alternate universe, and the castle wasn’t it. Everything that had happened to me and Remus in the last few weeks, was because of one, single event.

 

“PADFOOT!” I heard James’s booming voice shout to my left and I dipped my head just in time to dodge a Bludger that was aimed straight for the stands around the Quidditch pitch.

“Oi, _so_ sorry, Black!” the Slytherin Beater mockingly apologized as the Slytherin team sniggered. I sneered in his direction, but didn’t make any of the usual threats of curses.

It had been a little more than a week since Remus had been released from the hospital after the incident with Snivellus, and almost that long since he’d spoken to me. I’d cornered him in the common room, and after Potions, a few days after his release, but his feelings were made perfectly clear. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I likely hated myself more than he hated me.

Even James felt sorry for me, and he may have been even more furious than Remus, in the beginning. After I explained to him, quite embarrassingly, that I was actually head-over-heels in fucking love with Remus Lupin, he took a little pity on me, I suppose. James managed to convince me to come watch Quidditch practice, but I was hardly paying attention. I hardly paid attention to anything, anymore. Except Remus.

Which explains why I was almost knocked bloody unconscious by that Bludger – because I had been staring longingly at Remus. I wasn’t sure why he was here – he just sat there (next to Peter, who was at nearly every practice) with his nose buried in a novel. It could have been a meager attempt by James or Pete to try to rebuild the bridge I had burned into the ground, but Remus hadn’t even looked up – at James or me.

The Slytherin team wasn’t even supposed to be on the pitch today. James was irate over their presence, but the other Gryffindors convinced him into trying to ignore them. The Bludger at my head was nearly the last straw, but I waved it off, convincing him over the distance that I was fine. Well, outwardly fine. Inwardly, on fire, beaten bloody, and left to die.

For a while, everything was quiet. I got absorbed in watching The Gryffindors run a ridiculous play, which ended in the Seeker – not knowing, really, what his place was – landing right in the middle of the two Beaters. The three of them collided into a heap, barely managing to stay on their brooms. James was yelling at the Seeker, of course, for not looking for the Snitch.

With a smile, I looked over at Moony, wondering if he were even partly amused by their spectacle. At that moment, I watched a couple of Slytherins swoop down from the sky, grab Remus by his shoulders, and carry him off into the clouds, as the rest of the team laughed.

“Remus!” I shouted, as the three of them disappeared behind gray rainclouds. Pete looked over at me in terror – the Slytherins were looking at me, too, amused. Luckily, an unsuspecting Gryffindor was hovering near me, just under the stands. I gripped him by the robes, pulled him into the stands and took off on his broom. James was right on my tail.

Right then, my absolute worst fear came to fruition. I watched Remus Lupin – the love of my life – free falling through dark clouds, the Slytherins chasing him in a panic.

“MOONY!” I screamed, my voice cracking. I wasn’t going to make it. I was pushing this broom to its limit, and I wasn’t going to catch him in time. Without thinking, I stood on the handle of my broom and leapt – jumping just far enough to catch Remus in my arms.

“Sirius,” he whispered blearily, his eyes shut tight. I just held him, as we fell.

“I’ve got you, Moony,” I sighed into his ear.

 

 My eyes began to flutter open, but every slit of light they caught increased the pounding in my head. I could just barely register that there was a song playing. My favorite song – a Muggle song, by a rock-and-roll band. Was I in Gryffindor Tower?

The lyrics drifted into my ears. _“I get down on my knees, and I start to pray, ‘til the tears run down from my eyes.”_ Suddenly, I remembered what happened and I sat up quickly – only to instantly regret it, as my vision grew black, my head swimming.

“Take it easy, Pads,” I heard a soft voice to my right.

“Prongs?” I called into the blackness. “Where’s Moony? Is he alright?” I asked in a panic, still unable to open my eyes to look at him. I felt James’ fingers curl around my hand.

“He’s right next to you, mate. He’s okay,” he said, relief flooded in his voice. At once, I reached my hand out to the opposite side and found Remus’s fingers with mine – he was lying right at my side. His skin was warm, flushed, but he didn’t seem to register that I held his hand.

“Where are we? Why is Queen playing?” I asked and I heard a laugh from James and another voice – Pete was there with him. Finally, my vision began to clear, and I looked over at them both through blurry eyes. James had a terrible black eye; Pete had two.

“We’re in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey let us bring your hi-fi in when she heard about what you did for Moony.” I shifted, groaning from the pain it caused.

“How long have I been out?” I asked, wincing. A look crossed between James and Peter.

“About a week,” Peter said, swallowing hard. “We were afraid …” His words trailed off, as his pudgy bottom lip began to quiver. James looked down for a moment before speaking.

“Anyway, you’re awake now,” James said, clearing his throat and blinking furiously.

“How did we …” I began to ask, but Peter interrupted.

“Not die?” he mumbled, wiping tears from his eyes. I nodded. James looked down.

“I cast Immobulus at you,” he replied quietly.

“Prongs, you saved our lives.” I wondered why he looked like he had failed.

“You were falling way too fast,” he rambled angrily. “Immobulus stopped you much too quickly – you might as well have hit the ground.”

“But we didn’t, because of you, you wanker,” I joked, and this brightened his mood a bit, so I continued with my tirade of questions. “What happened to you two?” I asked cautiously, pointing at the three black eyes between them. At this, James beamed.

“The Slytherin Quidditch team happened. It’s why you and Moony are sharing a bed. There weren’t enough left for all of them, and you two.” He and Pete shared a fist bump.

“You beat up the entire Slytherin team?” I asked incredulously, puckering out my bottom lip to show how impressed I was. Pete nodded excitedly.

“We had some help from our team,” James admitted with a shrug, like it was no big feat, but his eyes were bright. “Anyway, they left ages ago. Just you and Moony in here, now.”

“So why are we still sharing a bed?” I asked, and James raised an eyebrow at me. I may have grown a little pink in the face at his expression.

“Madam Pomfrey didn’t want to move either of you,” he stated the facts.

“Plus, you had your arms around him the whole time,” Pete grinned, puckering his lips to mimic a kiss. James just smiled to himself. I hadn’t exactly made my feelings about Moony public knowledge, yet. I laughed it off, trying to cover my blushing by ruffling his hair.

“Oh, piss off, Wormtail.” I smiled, reminded of how the Pete in my dream was just the same as the real thing. My eyebrows furrowed as I recalled it.

“What’s wrong, Pads?” James asked.

“Nothing, I just … I had the strangest dream,” I sighed, recalling in vivid detail everything that happened there. How Remus was my uni roommate, how badly he had hated me, and then how he very much _didn’t_ hate me. The heat of a blush filled my cheeks at the idea of the things I had done with – and to – a very naked Remus, and I wondered if James had noticed.

As if on cue, Remus stirred, our fingers still entwined under the sheets. At first, I started to pull away, unsure of how he felt about me, but he tightened his grip on my hand.

“Padfoot,” he groaned softly, his eyes still closed. James caught my attention as he forced Peter to his feet. Peter seemed confused, but remained silent.

“We’ll, uh … we’ll be back … later,” James said, quickly winking at me as he and Pete turned to leave. I just smiled for a moment, before turning back to Remus.

“I’m here, Moony. I’ve got you,” I said, taking his hand into both of mine, remembering not only the time I had said it to him in the real world, but the time I’d said it to him in my dream. Just before I had done something very indecent to him.

“You keep saying that to me,” he said, a slight smile on his lips, eyes unopened.

“Just the once,” I laughed, trying to cover the trembling in my voice.

“Twice, actually,” he said, finally opening his eyes to look at me. The eyes that had been dark for days were suddenly bright amber, and he smiled at me. My breath caught in my throat.

 

No, that was impossible. Did we … have the same dream?

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 There was a great pounding in my … well, generally everything, actually. It felt like I had fallen from ten stories up. Oh. Right.

When I woke, I heard voices speaking softly – all three of my friends were there. Surely after what happened, I was in the hospital, but I had to rethink that conclusion when I heard Sirius’s Queen album playing in the background. Madam Pomfrey definitely wouldn’t have allowed anyone to bring a hi-fi (especially with a rock-and-roll vinyl) into her hospital wing.

Additionally, there was a warm body next to me. Madam Pomfrey didn’t particularly approve of shared beds. It was only when I realized that my fingers were entangled in those of the other person in my bed that I recalled the last few moments of my descent. Sirius had caught me. It had to be him lying next to me.

That thought brought up a whole new flurry of revelations. If Sirius was next to me, and he was the one holding so delicately onto my hand, did that mean that the things I had just dreamed weren’t entirely in my head? Was Sirius _really_ in love with me? He’d blatantly told me so to my face, only a few days ago, but I had thought it was his last ditch lie to get me to forgive him. It had stirred up my every memory with Sirius, forcing me to wonder something horrible.

 

Whether I had been in love with _him_ all along.

 

Now, there wasn’t even a doubt over the answer to that. Even after everything the two of us had been through the last several weeks, with Severus and the Willow, I knew suddenly, when it had only been a crazy idea before, that I was hopelessly, sickeningly in love with Sirius Black.

When I heard Sirius tells James and Peter that he’d had _‘the strangest dream,’_ I knew I was right. For whatever reason, somehow, Sirius and I had both had the same dream.

Finally, I shifted – but quickly regretted the movement – and I felt Sirius begin to pull his hand away from mine, as if he wasn’t sure I would want it there. I tightened my grip, to let him know, _Yes, I need you, Sirius. I don’t know why it took a stupid dream to make me see it._

“Padfoot,” I tried to say, but it came out as a painful groan.

“We’ll, uh … we’ll be back … later,” I heard James say, and I opened one eye just wide enough to see him wink at Sirius, before unable to keep it open any longer. I wondered just how much James knew about how Sirius felt about me. Actually, I wondered how much I had known, ignoring every nervous smile and brush of skin and sideways glance, because it was _just_ _Padfoot._

“I’m here, Moony. I’ve got you,” he said, taking my hand with both of his own, and I was starkly reminded of the first time I’d heard him say that. Not during the fall, but during the dream, when his lips had been pressed quite low on my abdomen.

“You keep saying that to me,” I tested with a smile, wondering if he would remember.

“Just the once,” he laughed, but it was nervous. His voice wavered.

“Twice, actually,” I argued, using all my strength to open my eyes to look at him. His mercury eyes were swirling as they looked at me, the same way they did in the dream.

“I only dreamt the first one,” he said, looking curiously at me, as if wondering which one of us would admit what was happening when he’d said it the first time. Just the memory of it – dream or not – sent a rush of warm energy right down my stomach. And if I were honest, it wasn’t the first time I’d felt that same heat, in regards to Sirius. When he emerged from a shower in the dorms, his dark, wet hair clinging to his pale skin; when he playfully purred into my ear, the way he did with James, but definitely _not_ the way he did with James; that time in Potions when I almost admitted that the Amortentia smelled like his unique brand of menthol cigarettes.

“Funny,” I said. “I must’ve had the same dream.” He laughed loudly, but clutched his ribs right after, the movement paining him more than he expected.

“I doubt you had the same dream as me,” he chuckled, turning on his side to face me. As he breathed out, I could practically taste the mint and smoke on his tongue, and it wasn’t enough just to have had him in the dream. I needed him, the taste of him.

“I’m fairly sure you were about to blow me,” I stated bluntly and Sirius made a surprised, choking noise. After he coughed for a moment, he looked at me, through silver bedroom eyes.

“And, uh … how did you …” he stammered, inching closer to me, “ _feel_ about that?”

As my answer, I wrapped my hands around his neck, quickly pulling his lips into mine, sliding my tongue slowly, deeply into his mouth. Instantly, he moaned, sending an electric current down from my lips into the rest of me.

“I felt,” I answered, pushing his chin up as I kissed down his neck, “like I had never wanted anything so badly in all my life.” His breathing had become ragged.

“What _else_ did we do in this dream?” he asked, his head still raised, and I began to unbutton his button-down shirt, which he’d been wearing since last Quidditch practice. Pomfrey must’ve performed many a scouring spell on both of us over the last week to have kept us from _smelling_ like we hadn’t bathed in days. I was more thankful to her for that than for the healing. 

“As if you don’t know,” I laughed against his skin, kissing down his bare chest. His fingers had found their way into my hair, and I had suddenly forgotten every pain.

“I remember,” he said, as he twisted, pushing me back down onto the mattress with an absolutely wild look in his eyes. “That you didn’t let me finish.”

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Oh, God – so he _had_ remembered. Even better, he evidently wanted a reenactment, which I was more than happy to give to him. If _this_ was a dream, I certainly didn’t want to wake up.

“I remember,” I replied, as I spun him around, letting him fall down onto the bed beneath me, letting my eyes drink him in. “That you didn’t let me finish.” Eagerly, I laid against him, still surprised to feel _Remus_ hard between my legs, as I dragged my tongue up his neck.

“Sirius, _here_?” he asked, his tone breathless but practically dripping with anticipation.

“In every fucking room in the castle, Moony,” I growled, biting down onto the soft skin at his neck, and he let out a little moan. He began fumbling at the bedside table outside the curtain that surrounded the bed, tipping his wand upward and whispering a silencing spell.

“Right, I remember you being rather loud,” I approved, as I completely unbuttoned his shirt, kissing, biting, licking down his chest until I reached my favorite scar. A scar that I had first seen, _felt_ in fifth year – the first time he had climbed into my bed after a transformation.

“Oh, _I’m_ loud,” he huffed, pausing to moan as I sucked hard onto his scar. “I recall you calling out my name, over and over.” I promptly shut him up as I had already unbuttoned his trousers, and slid my hand inside, along his already throbbing erection. His mindless moaning was even better than it had been in my dreams.

“Merlin, Remus,” I breathed out, still not used to the sounds I could cause him to make, and not sure I ever wanted to be used to them. Every miniscule ounce of self-control I had was suddenly lost, and I slipped my hands around Remus’s hips, pulling him up against my lips and breathing hard and hot against the swollen skin beneath his boxers. He thrashed against me, howling out unintelligible curse words as I firmly moved my lips against his sweltering cock.

“Gods, Sirius, _fuck me,”_ he moaned, his hand to his forehead, while I was left wondering if I’d ever even heard him use that word before, in the real world. Gladly, I pulled his boxers past his hips, taking a moment to stroke his impressive length in my fingers, before I began pressing dripping wet, searing hot kisses to the tip of his erect skin.

The moment my lips touched him, his back arched, with the neediest, most delicious moan pulled from the back of his throat. And I couldn’t help but feel the echo of that moan in a warm, hungering ache between my legs. Pressing myself against Remus’s calf, I took him at once down into my throat, and he responded by bucking his heedless hips up to meet me.

I couldn’t take him like this – mad and rough and overwhelmed. With Remus’s cock still between my teeth, I furiously unfastened my trousers, pulling myself hard into my hand and letting out a humming groan into Remus’s skin. When I looked back up at him, he was watching me – biting down hard onto his bottom lips, his amber eyes wide, his naked chest heaving, as I pumped myself with my hand, and ravaged him with my lips.

“Get on your knees, Padfoot,” he swallowed, his voice thick and coarse – it sent a new rush of blood into the skin underneath my hand. For a moment, I just looked at him, nibbling softly at the head of his cock. “You should let me do that,” he rasped, his eyes flittering down my waist to where I was holding my pulsating cock in my hand. I rose a single eyebrow, before I lunged back up to his mouth, mauling him with my tongue. Immediately, his slender fingers wrapped around my shaft, and I moaned heavy into his mouth.

“ _Fuck_ , Moony,” I exhaled hard as his tight grip thrust firmly up and down, “ _Oh Godric,_ just like that, Moony, don’t fucking stop.” His lips had moved across my neck, he panted roughly into my ear, and I was sure I’d never heard him say anything so obscene.

“You’re so fucking hard, Pads. _Gods,_ please let me suck you off,” he whined, sucking hard on my earlobe, as if I needed any more stimulation over what his mouth could likely do.

But I shook my head, pulling away from him for a moment. “Oh, not yet, Moony, love,” I teased, remaining on my knees, but putting my head back between his legs. Remus responded by letting out a bursting, eager whimper, but his hand continued to work me. “Not until I’ve sucked you completely fucking dry.” I didn’t even comprehend how awkwardly I was twisted, in order to keep Remus’s hand on my cock, and his cock in my mouth – I could only focus on how desperately I needed him to fill my mouth again.

With one hand at the base of his shaft, I slipped Remus’s cock between my teeth, keeping them apart just enough so that Remus could feel them scrape raggedly down him as he was plunged down my throat. His voice was on the brink of a scream, I knew he was close, and I kept up the savagely brutal things I was doing to him with my tongue.

“Sirius,” he finally called, each syllable louder than the last, as one of his hands dove viciously into my hair, the other hand increasing in grip until I felt like I may just come before I had ever even been introduced to his glorious mouth. “Sirius. _Sirius._ _Sirius,_ ” he howled, the muscles of his abdomen tensing, his fingers knotting tightly into my hair, and the other fingers clenching violently around my aching cock, as he spilled out, hot and full, into my mouth.

Just as I had swallowed, he pulled aggressively at my hips until I fell forward, landing hard with my hands against the wall behind him. When I looked down at him, he rose a single, frighteningly devious eyebrow at me, my pounding cock centimeters from his mouth, and his hands still at my hips, his fingernails digging sharply into my skin. His expression was torment, as if he were going to let me continue to ache before him.

“I need you so bad, Remus, please,” I practically begged. He smiled, almost shyly, darting out his tongue to lap at the tip of my cock, and I shuddered.

“I’ve got you, Padfoot,” he grinned cunningly, placing his moist, reddened lips to my cock, licking at the slit and letting his pouting lips, his dripping tongue travel over every swollen inch. It was a good thing he had thought of the silencing spell, because I was _screaming_ , not able to suppress the bucking of my hips, shoving my eager cock into his wet, waiting mouth. When he started humming, I went completely incoherent and senseless, wailing his name and listing all the things I was going to do to pay him back _in full_ for the magic that his mouth was working.

“Oh, Gods, Remus,” I said, my voice suddenly drained, as I could feel the weight of an orgasm building in my abdomen. “Moony – don’t stop – oh _fuck_ , that’s – _yes_ ,” I rambled, my voice raising again to a scream, “ _Fuck_ , Remus,” as my throbbing cock spilled everything into Remus’s mouth, my eyes rolling back in my head as I raised my head to scream his name.

If I had thought I had come hard to the _idea_ of Remus sucking me off, the actual event was exponentially greater. Every muscle was suddenly sore as I collapsed, sweaty and naked, back onto the hospital bed, next to Remus. He was as breathless as I was, using his thumb to coyly swipe a dribble from underneath his lip, which he promptly licked, looking lustfully at me as he did it. My mouth hanging open, I leapt up and ravaged his mouth with my tongue.

“I could fuck you right now, Remus Lupin,” I growled into him, feeling him already hardening against my growing erection. I pushed my hips further into him.

“What if I said I would let you?” he grinned knowingly, wrapping one of his legs around my hips and pressing himself hard against me. I groaned, frustrated.

“How do you _do_ this to me?” I whined.

“Because you’re wildly in love with me,” he said, his eyes shining. “Just like I am mindlessly in love with you, Sirius. You idiot.”

Just as I had let out the most devastated moan, and returned my tongue to Remus’s mouth, the curtain pulled back and we both looked round to see Madam Pomfrey standing there, the concerned smile that had been present rapidly replaced by painfully widening eyes, a maroon shade of blush and a mouth hanging agape.

“Oh, shit,” Remus mumbled against my neck.

 

For the next – well, eternity – the school was abuzz with rumors about how Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were found naked in bed together in the infirmary. Every time anyone mentioned it to us, I laughed, turning to Remus, who had an adorably filthy expression.

“Oh, that’s not true, is it Moony?” I winked, right before purring into his ear and giving him a sharp swat on the arse, leaving my hand to grope him a bit before walking off.

 

Remus always made sure to give a little stimulated whimper as I left.

 

Nobody but the Marauders was ever really, entirely sure if the rumor was true.

 


End file.
